Tech communities are booming all over Africa, says Nairobi-based Juliana Rotich, cofounder of the open-source software Ushahidi. But it remains challenging to get and stay connected in a region with frequent blackouts and spotty Internet hookups. So Rotich and friends developed BRCK, offering resilient connectivity for the developing world. Juliana Rotich is co-founder and executive director of Ushahidi, a nonprofit tech company, born in Africa, that develops free and open-source software for information collection, interactive mapping and data curation. Ushahidi builds tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories. Through Crowdmap.com, Swiftly.org and accompanying mobile applications, Ushahidi is making crowdsourcing tools available and useful. Their latest product is BRCK, a tool for resilient connectivity -- anywhere.
Governance and participation in health
Photovoice is an important participatory research tool for advancing health equity. This paper critically reviews how participant voice is promoted through the photovoice process of taking and discussing photos and adding text/captions. PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Web of Science databases were searched from the years 2008 to 2014 and reviewed for how participant voice was (a) analysed, (b) exhibited in community forums, and (c) disseminated through published manuscripts. Of 21 studies, 13 described participant voice in the data analysis, 14 described participants’ control over exhibiting photo-texts, seven manuscripts included a comprehensive set of photo-texts, and none described participant input on choice of manuscript photo-texts. The findings indicate that photovoice designs vary in the advancement of participant voice, with the least advancement occurring in manuscript publication. The authors indicate that future photovoice researchers should expand approaches to advancing participant voice.
This is an interview with Simon Njami, a curator responsible for many exhibitions of contemporary African art gathering artists from 20 different African countries. On African photography he notes ‘Photography is necessarily contextual. First, it’s about the gaze and who is taking the picture. In Africa, it’s also a matter of re-appropriating one’s own image. The South African photographer Santu Mofokeng questions the role of humanity in his work. Africa is only 50 years old. It has done a lot to rebuild the past, live the present and look towards the future.’ On art and politics on the continent he argues ‘Egyptian artists were at the forefront of the protest before the Revolution. Senegalese young rappers launched the movement Y’en a Marre (‘Enough is enough’) in 2011...Art has a dual function....It’s a space of relative freedom’ . He raises the huge social potential of art, but also says 'Having said that, one has to tickle an elephant for a while before it starts laughing. In practice, change takes a while, even if it seems inevitable'.
Sustainable, effective and successful partnerships need to be built on mutual trust, on an explicit programme, clearly defined responsibilities, champion figures and financial resources. In this article, Dr. Kakonge outlines positive and negative factors that influence development assistance partnerships in Africa. The article notes that partnership demands creativity, compromise, commitment, consistency, flexibility and fairness. Some scholars argue that partnerships do not work when there is poor coordination relating to external assistance. . The author reviews factors that are critical in making development assistance partnerships successful in Africa.
Ban Ki-Moon’s term as UN Secretary General ends this year and already political jostling is underway ahead of the selection of the new head of the world body. There are strong indications that favour a woman candidate. And how has Africa positioned itself for the unfolding contest? A number of African female candidates with the right credentials fit to lead the UN exist. The author discusses which African candidates could be in the running and whether a candidate from Kenya might have the diplomatic weight to lobby and get elected.
The Global strategy for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health (2016–2030) recognizes that people have a central role in improving their own health. The authors propose that community participation, particularly communities working together with health services (co-production in health care), will be central for achieving the objectives of the global strategy. Community participation specifically addresses the demand to transform societies so that women, children and adolescents can realize their rights to the highest attainable standards of health and well-being. This paper examines what this implies in practice. The authors discuss three interdependent areas for action towards greater participation of the public in health: improving capabilities for individual and group participation; developing and sustaining people-centred health services; and social accountability. They outline challenges for implementation, and provide policy-makers, programme managers and practitioners with illustrative examples of the types of participatory approaches needed in each area to help achieve the health and development goals.
WHO Watch is a civil society project, coordinated by People’s Health Movement (PHM) and Medicus Mundi International, directed both to supporting WHO and holding it accountable. WHO Watch involves a team of ‘watchers’ attending WHO governing body meetings, lobbying delegates, speaking from the floor, documenting and reporting on the debate and the decisions, and preparing commentaries on each of the agenda items. These commentaries are designed to support progressive delegations (in particular from smaller countries who have only limited human resources to devote to these issues) as well as arguing for progressive outcomes. The Sixty Ninth World Health Assembly (WHA69) convened in Geneva from 23 – 28 May 2016. The Watch reports on the debates on various items, including: managing conflicts of interest in global health; maternal, infant and young child nutrition; ending childhood obesity; ageing; air pollution; the ‘sound’ management of chemicals; antimicrobial resistance; polio; managing global health emergencies; the health of migrants; lessons from Ebola in West Africa; HIV, viral hepatitis, STIs; vaccination; global health workforce issues; medicines and intellectual property.
In this article the authors argue that the World Health Organisation (WHO) Secretariat, Member States and observers should honestly admit that they have so far fallen very short of the WHO Mission. The authors argue that the organization has become a huge bureaucratic structure while at the same time under-resourcing its needs has made it incapable of providing a timely response to the urgent health needs happening in the world. The organization is argued to be being privatized with influence from small group of private funders. This authors observe that the limited participation sometimes turns into an uncomfortable position for many, when faced with the lack of progress in the debates or with the endless diplomatic language that is used without reaching any concrete agreements and with resolutions and decisions where that make it almost impossible to identify the substance and therefore difficult to see their real value. In the meantime millions of diseases and preventable deaths are happening far away from what is being discussed at “the highest levels” of international public health policy arena.
The 69th World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted the Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA) on the concluding day of Assembly. The adoption of FENSA is the conclusion of a process initiated as part of the WHO reform in 2011. FENSA consists of an overarching framework of engagement with Non-State Actors (NSAs) and four separate policies for governing the engagements with four categories, i.e. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), private sector, philanthropic foundations and academic institutions. The overarching principles set out the common rules for all NSAs and treat all NSAs on an equal footing. The separate policies provide certain customised aspects of the overarching principles to the respective categories of NSAs. The framework regulates five types of engagements: participation, resources, advocacy, evidence, and technical collaboration. The WHA resolution that adopts the FENSA decides to replace the two existing policies governing WHO engagements with NGOs and the private sector. Further, the resolution requests the Director-General to start the implementation immediately and take all necessary measures to fully implement FENSA. Further, it requests the Director-General to expedite the full establishment of WHO’s NSA register.
Developed countries are reported to be turning against the World Health Organization’s framework of engagement with non-State actors (FENSA), by putting conditions for its adoption as negotiations on it enter into the last stage. Member States from Europe are reported to be raising three issues to block the adoption of FENSA. First, that the adoption of FENSA is possible only when there is a clear understanding on the implications of its implementation, especially financial and human resource implications. Secondly, that the Secretariat be given flexibility to suspend FENSA norms while engaging with non-State actors to respond to emergencies, and thirdly that the implementation of FENSA be at all three levels of WHO viz. headquarters, regional and national.