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.
Values, Policies and Rights
In the 2010/2011 period, South Africa’s 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’s 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.
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.
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.
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’ 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.
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.
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, Michél Sidibé. '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 – which recently tabled the Anti-homosexuality Bill – 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.
"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."
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.
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.