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.
Governance and participation in health
The Olympic Games may go back 3,000 years to Ancient Greece, but the international sporting event that takes place every four years didn’t take on its modern form until 1896. And while the games claim to represent global sporting culture, as suggested by the Olympics’ 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.
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.
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—learning 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.
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 ‘Photography is necessarily contextual. First, it’s about the gaze and who is taking the picture. In Africa, it’s also a matter of re-appropriating one’s 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.’ On art and politics on the continent he argues ‘Egyptian artists were at the forefront of the protest before the Revolution. Senegalese young rappers launched the movement Y’en a Marre (‘Enough is enough’) in 2011...Art has a dual function....It’s a space of relative freedom’ . 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'.
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.
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’s Constitution, the Eleventh General Programme of Work, 2006–2015 and the medium-term strategic plan 2008–2013, 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’s 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.
Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo came under fire for naming what has been described as an ‘elephant’ cabinet – 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’s 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 – they create compromise and cohesion within the political class.
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.
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 – 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.