According to this paper, the current widespread use of the term ‘resilience’ in development circles is at risk of being diluted by current ways of thinking about change because the term has not brought about genuine change in thinking about social systems. The author argues that if the term ends up being used in a very linear manner, where change is controllable from the outside and follows a linear path, it will have failed to achieve its mission. The author calls for a break from expert-led technocratic solutions and renewed focus on human agency as the main vehicle for change. Resilience-based thinking underlines the importance of leadership and reinvents the task of the international community as supporting constructive leadership rather than designing expert solutions. For leaders, it opens up space for creative thinking and hybrid, localised solutions.
Governance and participation in health
Implementation of policies (decisions) in the health sector is sometimes defeated by the system’s response to the policy itself. This can lead to counter-intuitive, unanticipated, or more modest effects than expected by those who designed the policy. The health sector fits the characteristics of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and complexity is at the heart of this phenomenon. Anticipating both positive and negative effects of policy decisions, understanding the interests, power and interaction between multiple actors and planning for the delayed and distal impact of policy decisions are essential for effective decision making in CAS. Failure to appreciate these elements often leads to a series of reductionist approach interventions or ‘fixes’. This in turn can initiate a series of negative feedback loops that further complicates the situation over time. In this paper, researchers use a case study of the Additional Duty Hours Allowance (ADHA) policy in Ghana to illustrate these points. Using causal loop diagrams, they unpack the intended and unintended effects of the policy and how these effects evolved over time. The overall goal is to advance our understanding of decision making in complex adaptive systems; and through this process identify some essential elements in formulating, updating and implementing health policy that can help to improve attainment of desired outcomes and minimise negative unintended effects.
While Barack Obama’s re-election has been met with enthusiasm across Africa, the article reports that many are frustrated about a lack of delivery on past promises. Where does Africa fit into the new administration’s foreign policy? The author argues that Obama’s current rhetoric about Africa makes generalisations about common aspirations, opportunity and African potential. He asserts that future engagement with African countries may be focused on the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, part of the G8 plan to boost food production in Africa by introducing large-scale, mechanised agriculture with genetically modified crops. The author poses that this is expected to impact negatively on small-scale farmers and possibly increase food insecurity.
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.
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.