EQUINET AFRICA

EQUINET, the Regional Network on Equity in Health in Southern Africa, is a network of professionals, civil society members, policy makers, state officials and others within the region who have come together as an equity catalyst, to promote and realise shared values of equity and social justice in health.

EQUINET gathers people to overcome isolation, give voice and promote networking using bottom-up approaches built on shared values. We have come together in a spirit of self determination and collective self reliance working through existing government, civil society, research and other mechanisms and institutions i n the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and in southern and East Africa.

EQUINET is building a forum for dialogue, learning, sharing of information and experience and critical analysis. We do this to build knowledge and perspectiv es, shape effective strategies, strengthen our voice nationally, regionally and globally and our strategic alliances to influence policy, politics and practice towards health equity and social justice.

EQUINET's work covers a wide range of areas identified as priorities for health equity, within the political economy of health, health services and inputs to health, covered in the theme areas shown on this site. EQUINET is governed by a steering committee with representatives from fourteen institutions in southern Afr ica and is co-ordinated at the Training and Research Support Centre Zimbabwe.

Consultation on the WHO Global Health Sector Strategy for HIV/AIDS, 2011-2015

WHO has launched a web-based consultation to seek input on the development of the WHO Global Health Sector Strategy for HIV/AIDS, 2011-2015. We kindly request your feedback on the consultation materials that will be available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish at the following website:
http://www.who.int/hiv/aboutdept/strategy_consultation/en/index.html
Comments need to be submitted by 31 August at http://www.who.int/hiv/aboutdept/strategy_form/en/index.html
To facilitate synthesis of all inputs it is recommended that comments be submitted in English if possible.

ECSA Health community holds the first meeting of its monitoring and evaluation expert group in Harare July 12-16 2010

During the 50th Health Ministers Conference (HMC) held in Uganda in February 2010 the East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA-HC) Secretariat was directed to facilitate the setting up of a Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Expert Core Group by August 2010 (Resolution ECSA/HMC50/R9- “Tracking progress towards meeting the MDGs”). The aim of this resolution was to ensure that member states are able to track and report on progress of the Resolutions against a standard set of indicators, using a uniform format for all future Health Ministers Conferences. The first meeting of the M&E expert group was organised by the ECSA-HC Secretariat with support from the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare (MoHCW) Zimbabwe, EQUINET, Tides Foundation and USAID. The meeting:
1. finalised and adopted the Terms of Reference of the expert group
2. finalised a proposed HMC monitoring tool
3. adopted core indicators for monitoring programmes at regional and country level.
4. finalised the ECSA M&E Framework and harmonized it with other regional frameworks
5. reviewed the equity watch initiative for analysis of inequalities in health and adopted its use at country and regional level. The report of the meeting is being finalised and will be made available.

Meeting on the role of medical aid societies in Zimbabwes health sector, July 2010

Training and Research Support Centre, Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiation Institute with the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University in the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) held a one day workshop on 7 July 2010 to bring together researchers, policy makers, health sector regulators and the medical aid societies to discuss issues around the flow and impact of capital flows through medical aid societies on the health sector in Zimbabwe. The findings of the research implemented in Zimbabwe, EQUINET Discussion paper 82, were presented for discussion and review. The meeting identified areas for follow up action. The meeting report will be available on the EQUINET website in the coming weeks.

Equity issues at the World Health Assembly 2010

The 63rd World Health Assembly was held in Geneva in May 2010. The agenda highlighted a number of issues that have implications for health equity in the east and southern Africa region. These include
- Pandemic influenza preparedness: sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines
- Implementation of the International Health Regulations
- Public health, innovation and intellectual property: global strategy and plan of action
- Monitoring of the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals
- International recruitment of health personnel: draft global code of practice
- Infant and young child nutrition Documents
- Prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases
- Strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol
- WHO’s role and responsibilities in health research
- Counterfeit medical products
- Strengthening the capacity of governments to constructively engage the private sector
- Primary health care, including health system strengthening
The full documents are found at www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2010/wha63/en/index.html
The keynote address by Mrs Ellen Johnson Sirleaf President of the Republic of Liberia is found at http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_DIV5-en.pdf

The Closing remarks by Dr Margaret Chan Director-General of the World Health Organization are shown below.....

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Equity in resource allocation: what progress are we making?

The Regional Network on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET), through TARSC and University of Cape Town with support from IDRC is providing small grants for work to follow up on progress in integrating equity in resource allocation formulae in countries in east and southern Africa. This work aims to gather evidence on
• changes in the resource allocation formulae
• changes in the allocation of public funds for health services between geographic areas (e.g. regions/provinces and/or districts), and
• experiences in implementing relative resource redistribution.
It will be reported in 2010. For further information on this work or those with experience on equity in resource allocation please contact the EQUINET secretariat at admin@equinetafrica.org.

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