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.
Latest Equinet Updates
Implications of the GATS and TRIPS agreements for the Right to Health in Malawi
Mabika AH, London L (2007)
Information sheet 6 on COVID-19: Long COVID in East and Southern Africa
EQUINET, TARSC and the Post COVID Treatment Network - Africa: Harare, 2021
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 ‘long COVID’. This information sheet summarises information on long COVID, and its distribution in the ESA region, responses to it and the equity issues it raises.
Innovative financing for development takes a step forward at the 2010 UN summit
Loewenson R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 1(4):6-9, November 2010
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 ‘innovative financing mechanisms can make a positive contribution’ 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).
INVESTIGACIÓN-ACCIÓN PARTICIPATIVA EN SISTEMAS DE SALUD: UNA GUÍA DE MÉTODOS
Loewenson R; Laurell AC; Hogstedt C; D’Ambruoso L; Shroff Z: TARSC, AHPSR, WHO, IDRC Canada, EQUINET, Harare, 2014
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 – old and new – 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 ‘participatory action research’ (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:
• key features of participatory action research and the history and knowledge paradigms that inform it;
• 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
• communication, reporting, institutionalization and use of participatory action research in health systems.
Issues of equity are also issues of rights: Lessons from experiences in Southern Africa
London, L. BMC Public Health 7 :4 pp 1-10
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
approaches appear to offer powerful tools to support social justice and health equity.
Keeping an eye on equity! Community visions of equity in health
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 “KEEPING AN EYE ON EQUITY: Community visions of equity in health”. 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.
Keeping an eye on Equity: Community visions of equity in health
TARSC, LDHMT, IPASC, HocSI, RHE, HEPS, IHRG, Msichoke, IHI
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’s 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.
Contact: admin@equinetafrica.org
Keeping an eye on equity: Community visions of equity in health
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
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 ‘Eye on equity’ team because the work was part of EQUINET’s 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’s 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.
Contact: admin@equinetafrica.org
Knowledge and attitudes of intern doctors at rural and urban hospitals in Uganda regarding the migration of health workers
Lwamafa DK, Nabitaka MV, Opio KC
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.
Launch of the Mozambique Equity Watch, Report, Maputo, September 27
Ministry of Health Government of Mozambique, EQUINET: November 2010
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.