Human Resources

AIDS risk cover for South African companies

According to a report in the UN's IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Network) humanitarian information unit, Capital Alliance, an insurance company, has produced South Africa's first insurance product that allows employers to take out insurance against the risk of their employees contracting HIV/AIDS.

Driving home the message
HIV prevention among African truck drivers

African truck drivers have long been implicated in the spread of HIV. They stop at towns along major routes to eat, sleep, sell goods and have sex. Intermediaries are often involved in negotiations between drivers and commercial sex workers (CSWs). Could these middlemen contribute to HIV prevention efforts?

Social Sector Reform in Transition Countries

Peter S. Heller and Christian Keller, 2001 Washington: International Monetary Fund IMF Working Paper No. 01/35
The high unemployment rates seen in many of the transition economies make it difficult for households to improve their living standards and escape from poverty, while existing labor market regimes at times appear to be obstacles to job creation. Labor laws must be examined to see whether they strike the right balance between protecting workers' rights, on the one hand, and allowing for sufficient labor market flexibility, on the other. Overly restrictive employment protection legislation might have to be liberalized, minimum wage practices reevaluated, and flexible fixed-term contracts permitted in order to increase labor market flexibility and make labor codes more appropriate for prevailing labor market conditions. The transition countries' often extensive menus of active labor market policies must be continually reassessed with respect to their cost and effectiveness.

Further details: /newsletter/id/28885
Globalization and occupational health:
a perspective from southern Africa

Rene Loewenson. Bulletin of the World Health Organization Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001
Increased world trade has generally benefited industrialized or strong economies and marginalized those that are weak. This paper examines the impact of globalization on employment trends and occupational health, drawing on examples from southern Africa. While the share of world trade to the world’s poorest countries has decreased, workers in these countries increasingly find themselves in insecure, poor-quality jobs, sometimes involving technologies which are obsolete or banned in industrialized countries. The occupational illness which results is generally less visible and not adequately recognized as a problem in low income countries. Those outside the workplace can also be affected through, for example, work related environmental pollution and poor living conditions. In order to reduce the adverse effects of global trade reforms on occupational health, stronger social protection measures must be built into production and trade activities, including improved recognition, prevention, and management of work-related ill-health. Furthermore, the success of production and trade systems should be judged on how well they satisfy both economic growth and population health.

The Provider Perspective: Human After All

By James D. Shelton
For more than 20 years, the family planning and reproductive health field has promoted the understanding of the "user perspective,"1 and rightly so. We've learned that in order to have successful programs that serve clients well, we need a better understanding of the people being served. But what of providers? Although providers are obviously essential partners in service programs, their perspectives have received remarkably little attention. That is a major gap. In the early 1990s, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) put forward its seminal work on the "needs of the provider" to complement its "rights of the client."2 But to improve programs further, we need to see the world through the providers' eyes and understand them better. Who are they? How do they see their jobs, their roles and their programs? What are their needs and motivations? What aspects of their work environments challenge them? What is the human dimension of their overall lives, and how can we best enlist their help to improve access to services and the quality of programs?

Workers Without Health Insurance:
Who Are They and How Can Policy Reach Them?

Urban Institute - August, 2001, Washington, D.C., USA.
A new Urban Institute report on workers without health insurance suggests that the most efficient way to increase coverage is to target subsidies toward low-income workers. The report offers the most detailed picture yet of the uninsured working population—now numbering more than 16 million—and compares the relative merits of two key vehicles for expanding coverage: tax credits or public programs. Researchers Bowen Garrett, Len Nichols and Emily Greenman, characterizes today’s uninsured and examines the policy implications. The report, based on analyses of 1999 Current Population Survey data and a survey of the literature on the working uninsured, was developed for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as part of its Community Voices: HealthCare for the Underserved initiative series.

Cracks in ANC's alliance widening

DIVISIONS within the African National Congress (ANC), and between the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SA Communist Party (SACP) over privatisation have been thrown into sharp relief at a top-level meeting called to iron out differences in the alliance on the issue. The meeting came as the ANC tries to head off next month's anti privatisation strike by Cosatu. At the same time it is seeking consensus on the restructuring of state assets in the run-up to a two-day alliance meeting scheduled for August 17- 18.

Health Department to Employ Iingcibi in Bid to Curb Deaths

In a move to curb Xhosa initiate deaths and mutilations the Health Department would employ experienced iincgibi (traditional surgeons) to perform circumcisions said Eastern Cape Health Department spokesperson Mahlubandile Magida yesterday.

Mozambique: Warning On AIDS Risk for Child Labour

UNICEF warned on Monday that child labourers in Mozambique were at a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and said it would encourage the government to find ways to stop child labour.

Zimbabwe: Health Services Crippled As Doctors, Nurses Strike

A strike by government doctors and nurses crippled state hospital services in the country's main cities on Wednesday, AP reported. Quoting the Hospital Doctors Association, the agency said about 350 doctors stopped work on Tuesday in the cities of Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo, the second city, demanding better salaries and allowances.

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