Governance and participation in health

We cannot fight AIDS unless we do much more to fight TB
SAfAIDS\' statement on World TB Day : Nelson Mandela. International AIDS Conference. Bangkok 2004

Tuberculosis (TB) is a curable and preventable disease, yet it is still infecting and killing millions of people throughout the world. This article discusses how more efforts are needed to address the increasing incidence of TB and HIV in many southern African countries. Advocacy efforts need to encourage governments and international funding agencies to develop appropriate responses to urgently address the co-pandemics.

Further details: /newsletter/id/31363
What is the evidence on effectiveness of empowerment to improve health?
Wallerstein N, Health Evidence Network

A new report from the Health Evidence Network shows that empowering socially excluded populations is a viable strategy for improving health. While participatory processes make up the base of empowerment, strategies must also build community organizations and individuals capacity to participate in decision-making and advocacy.

Stakeholders: Goverment-NGO partnerships for international development
Source : Multi Stakeholder Processes

This book talks about the changing relations between and roles of development NGOs and donor governmental agencies, based on case studies of 22 western countries, EU and the World Bank.

What is the evidence on effectiveness of empowerment to improve health?
WHO Regional Office for Europe -Health Evidence Network Report

A new report from the Health Evidence Network shows that empowering socially excluded populations is a viable strategy for improving health. While participatory processes make up the base of empowerment, strategies must also build community organizations and individuals capacity to participate in decision-making and advocacy.

Changing Paths: International Development and the New Politics of Inclusion
Edited by Peter P. Houtzager and Mick Moore

After two decades of marketizing, an array of national and international actors have become concerned with growing global inequality, the failure to reduce the numbers of very poor people in the world, and a perceived global backlash against international economic institutions. The essays in this volume explore what forms a new politics of inclusion can take in low- and middle-income countries. The contributors favor a polity-centered approach that focuses on the political capacities of social and state actors to negotiate large-scale collective solutions and that highlights various possible strategies to lift large numbers of people out of poverty and political subordination.

Governance and corruption in public health care systems
Equidad listserv : PAHO

"What factors affect health care delivery in the developing world? Anecdotal evidence of lives cut tragically short and the loss of productivity due to avoidable diseases is an area of salient concern in global health and international development. This working paper looks at factual evidence to describe the main challenges facing health care delivery in developing countries, including absenteeism, corruption, informal payments, and mismanagement. The author concludes that good governance is important in ensuring effective health care delivery, and that returns to investments in health are low where governance issues are not addressed." (Author's abstract)

The 'We All Have Aids Campaign'

The WE ALL HAVE AIDS Campaign is a show of solidarity among, and an acknowledgment of, many of the world's most accomplished, devoted and inspiring AIDS activists and scientists of the last 20 years. Barefoot and determined, each participant has left a meaningful mark in cement, but more importantly in the fight against HIV/AIDS and the destructive STIGMA associated with this devastating disease. Visit the website to find out more.

Radio Broadcasting for Health
DFID / Department for International Development (DFID), UK, 2004

This paper provides an overview of the role radio broadcasting can play in promoting better health for poor people. It has been conceptualised within the context of global efforts to reduce the burden of disease and ill health on poor people and advocates a people-centred and rights-based approach to health communications that emphasises: working with poor communities to gain an understanding of the full range of epidemiological, behavioural and risk taking factors that drive disease and ill health.

Health information generation and utilization for informed decision-making in equitable health service management
International Journal for Equity in Health 2005

The Kenya Partnership for Health (KPH) program began in 1999, and is currently one of the 12 field projects participating in the WHO's 'Towards Unity for Health initiative' implemented to develop partnership synergies in support of the Primary Health Care (PHC) approach. This paper illustrates how Program-linked Information Management by Integrative-participatory Research Approach (PIMIRA) as practised under KPH has been implemented within Trans-Nzoia District, Kenya to enhance community-based health initiatives. It shows how this model is strategically being scaled-up from one community to another in the management of political, social, cultural and economic determinants (barriers and enhancers) of health.

Popular Participation and primary health care in Uganda
Development Policy Review, Volume 23 Issue 2 Page 165, March 2005

"Advocates of participatory approaches to service delivery see devolution as key to empowering people to take charge of their own affairs. Participation is portrayed as guaranteeing the delivery of services that are in line with user preferences. It is assumed that people are keen to participate in public affairs, that they possess the capacity to do so, and that all they need is opportunities. Using evidence from ethnographic research in Uganda, this article questions these views. It shows that, to succeed in the long term, devolution and participation must take place in the context of a strong state, able to ensure consistent regulation, and a well-informed public backed up by a participatory political culture."

Pages