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’ 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.
Governance and participation in health
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:
- The Government should make relevant policies coupled with the provision of treatment that is affordable to people living with HIV/AIDS.
- The health institutions should start providing a user friendly service which is conducive to unhindered healing process for PWAs.
- The Government produces a clear programme on home based care And offer relevant financial support to the program.
- Provide ongoing counselling to those who want to disclose.
- The government should provide nutritional and vitamin supplement
- 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.
- And that NAPWA should advocate and explore alternative treatment programmes.
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 – of the health system to citizens’ 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.
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.
The 2009 edition of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch focuses on the question: ‘Who controls the governance of the world food system?’ 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.
'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.
SATUCC held a successful 10th Delegates’ 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.
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’s 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.
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.
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.