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Useful Resources
ND-GAIN Global Climate Change Vulnerability and Readiness Mapping
ND-GAIN
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.
New African Community of Practice blog
The Africa Portal’s 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.
New African health policy and systems resource website
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’s 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.
New AIDS and HIV website launched
Aids and Law Exchange (AIDS LEX): 2009
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.
New AIFO webpage
Among the new additions are online books, documents and reports related to leprosy, disability, primary health; etc, some online learning courses and online exhibitions.
New app takes African short stories to the world
NGO pulse, Sangonet, March 2019
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.
New blog on Africa launched
The Guardian: 1 October 2012
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.
New blog on South Africa’s health system
Health Policy SA
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’s Green Paper on the NHI is presented, and Doherty discusses the motivations behind the NHI, such as the urgent need to reduce South Africa’s 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’s research, as well as to other interesting and relevant research.
New blog: Governance for Development
World Bank: 2010
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 ‘with the grain’, in a way that takes institutions and politics into account calls for different approaches to engagement – 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.