In the wake of the recent ban by Kenya on the importation of genetically modified (GM) products until proper health evaluation has been completed, African civil society in this paper is requesting the African Union (AU) discuss banning all GM products throughout the continent at the next AU summit in January 2013. Civil society represented by 400 African organisations consisting of small-scale farmers, social movements, non-governmental organisations, faith-based groups, organic producers and consumers, business people and ordinary citizens issued a statement pointing out the lack of safety data on GM foods, as well as condemning the patenting of life and privatisation of agriculture, which threatens to displace African food producer control over their production systems.
Governance and participation in health
This evaluation of the South African Budget Monitoring and Expenditure Tracking (BMET) project, which was launched in 2009, demonstrates that citizen involvement in economic governance is both possible and progressing. The project is aimed at improving the delivery, accessibility and affordability of treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS and TB. Project interventions have reached a range of targeted beneficiaries and achieved a positive impact in four key aspects. First, community engagement has stimulated community members’ interest in budget issues relating to health care provision and mobilising for improvements. Second, health workers have a better understanding of their own and their client-community needs towards enhancing facility systems. Third, citizens are empowered with skills to research and track the quality of HIV and AIDS and TB services in their community and demand answers. Finally, collaboration on resolving longstanding and complex health service delivery problems has been enhanced because citizens, organisations and health authorities have a shared, relational understanding of both the barriers to and the opportunities for change.
ACTION and the GAVI civil society constituency have issued this statement urging the GAVI Alliance to support increased participation from civil society in its funding, strategy and governance. The GAVI Alliance is a public-private partnership that works to increase access to immunisation in developing nations. This Call to Action was presented at the GAVI Alliance Partners’ Forum in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where more than 600 global health leaders gathered in early December to discuss accelerating progress in global immunisation. The statement calls on GAVI to recognise the vibrant role played by civil society representatives in the Forum and their vital contributions to delivering vaccinations and care, reaching unimmunised children, as well as mobilising resources for health and immunisations. The signatories are hoping that GAVI will articulate in its next business plan how civil society contributes to each of GAVI’s strategic objectives, and will create a second seat on the GAVI Alliance Board for a civil society representative.
At a meeting on 1-2 November 2012 in Johannesburg, child rights organisations from across Southern Africa brought together a number of stakeholders – including parliamentarians, government officials and various civil society organisations – to meet under the auspices of the Child Rights Network for Southern Africa (CRNSA) and to reflect on building a strong child rights movement in Southern Africa. In this statement, they call on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to adopt a specific children’s protocol, ensuring meaningful participation of children at various levels of decision making, in particular helping each country to establish a state-funded children’s Parliament. At the same time, SADC should make state parties implement its basic minimum package of services for children, domesticate regional and international instruments that state parties have ratified and allocate and increase budgets for children at all levels while guaranteeing meticulous budget monitoring. The signatories further call on SADC governments to ensure timeous reporting to treaty bodies, especially the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child – to whom only Tanzania has reported – as well as prioritise child abuse prevention and early intervention programmes, expeditiously pass comprehensive child-related laws and policies, act as role models in championing children rights and address the contradictions arising from the existence of dual legal systems (customary law and civil law), notably in the case of harmful cultural practices.
In this study, researchers hypothesised that a participatory learning and action (PLA) family hygiene education approach plus the regular use of hygiene products could result in marked reduction of morbidity in children aged under five years. They sampled 685 households in two separate areas in Cape Town. Two groups received hygiene education only (control) and the other two groups hygiene education plus hygiene products (intervention). Results indicated that children aged under five years in all communities had significant reductions in gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses and skin infections over time. The first control group with hygiene education only was 2.46 times more likely to experience gastrointestinal illnesses and 4.56 times more likely to experience respiratory illnesses at study follow-up than the corresponding intervention group. The second control group with hygiene education only was 1.64 times more likely to experience gastrointestinal illnesses, 4.62 times more likely to experience respiratory illnesses and 1.29 times more likely to experience skin infections than the intervention group. In conclusion, while hygiene education alone resulted in meaningful reductions in the three conditions, families with hygiene education plus consistent use of provided hygiene products had greater reductions.
While many civil society activists continue to face traditional forms of repression, like imprisonment, some governments have become more subtle in their efforts to curb civil society organisation (CSO) space. This report provides illustrative examples of the legal barriers used to constrain this space. It also considers major challenges, such as restrictions on the use of new technologies, measures against public movements and peaceful assemblies, and the unintended consequences of efforts to enhance the effectiveness of foreign aid. After a discussion of the international principles protecting civil society, which are embedded in international law, ICNL calls on democratic governments and international organisations to recognise, protect, and promote fundamental rights to freedom of assembly and of association, and to raise the level of their engagement with CSOs in platforms such as the Community of Democracies’ Working Group on Enabling and Protecting Civil Society and the UN Special Rapporteur’s mandate. At the same time, CSOs are urged to deepen their understanding of legal frameworks governing them and build capacity to engage in reform of regressive frameworks.
In this article, the author asks whether the increasing number of women in the judiciary and politics will affect intellectual property regimes in both law and in politics. The author briefly describes articles written by feminists analyse the gendered nature of intellectual property law. Some papers argue that an increase in the past 40 years in the encroachment of private ownership rights at the expense of the public domain has raised gender inequalities. The public domain recognises the communal roots of creation, rather than the individual “inventor”, and has a primary concern of looking after people, not individual success based on money, which is a concern of business. These different features of public and private interests and social and collective spaces are analysed for the gender norms they reflect and their gender related consequences.
This article, based upon seven years of research and some 70 interviews with Cuban medical personnel, both in Cuba and abroad, seeks to provide a broad overview of the importance of Cuban medical internationalism. The article reviews several, different, programmes of medical cooperation in terms of basic data on their evolution and impact, and analysis of the rationale for their development. As of April 2012 there were 38,868 Cuban medical professionals working in 66 countries–of whom 15,407 were doctors (approximately 20% of Cuba’s 75,000 physicians). In Africa some 3,000 Cuban medical personnel are currently working in 35 of the continent’s 54 countries, while in Venezuela alone there are approximately 30,000. But that is only part of the story, since there are many other significant facets to Cuban medical internationalism. In all cases the author suggests that 'human capital' is the most important common denominator. For over fifty years Cuban medical personnel have served the poorest and most neglected areas of the world, going where other doctors refused to go.
This collection of essays looks at the post-2015 development agenda. In it, researchers and activists argue that the process undertaken to shape the new development agenda must be organised around seven priorities. 1. Integrating community experiences, expectations and insights at the heart of the process. 2. Widespread dialogue to capture and consolidate expectations of civil society organisations (CSOs) with regard to the second round of development goals. 3. Supporting and including evidence from research and analysis by institutions and experts located in the global south 4. consultations held with community groups, CSOs and academicians and engagement with the relevant policy makers. 5. Meaningful engagement by regional blocs like the African Union and trade forums such as BRICS and the G20. 6. Reaching out to young people and urban populations, and 7. Monitoring and enforcing corporate accountability.
This book captures the experiences and voices of over 6,000 people who have received international assistance, observed the effects of aid efforts or been involved in providing aid. More than 125 international and local aid organisations in 20 aid-recipient countries were interviewed about their experiences with, and judgments of, international assistance. The researchers also spoke with people who represented broad cross-sections of their societies, ranging from fishermen on the beach to government ministers with experience in bilateral aid negotiations. The voices reported here convey four basic messages: first, international aid is a good thing that is appreciated; second, assistance as it is now provided is not achieving its intent; third, fundamental changes must be made in how aid is provided if it is to become an effective tool in support of positive economic, social, and political change; and fourth, these fundamental changes are both possible and doable. What people want is an international assistance system that integrates the resources and experiences of outsiders with the assets and capacities of insiders to develop contextually appropriate strategies for pursuing positive change. The idea of international assistance needs to be redefined away from a system for delivering things and reinvented to support collaborative planning.