Useful Resources

The International Drug Price Indicator Guide contains a spectrum of prices from pharmaceutical suppliers, international development organizations, and government agencies. The Guide aims to make price information more widely available in order to improve procurement of medicines of assured quality for the lowest possible price. Comparative price information is important for getting the best price, and this is an essential reference for anyone involved in the procurement of pharmaceuticals. Management Sciences for Health (MSH) has published the International Drug Price Indicator Guide since 1986 and updates it annually.

Presenters' insights and experiences with progressive public services inspired and energized the 150+ people who came from across South Africa and around the world for this three-day event last April. All panel presentations and plenary talks recorded by students from the University of the Western Cape are available online.

Amidst austerity measures today, we find ourselves increasingly precarious and pixelated; atomized, alienated, and irreparably glitched. For the inaugural issue of The State, the theme was kept intentionally vague; fifteen writers from around the world responded in myriad voices and ways. Topics range from sociohistorical looks at sewers and single parenting throughout the ages, to reimagining a weedy field as a portmanteau of globalisation. Others take a more personal approach, interrogating experiences of Afropolitanism, of being a person of colour in post-9/11 America, and of returning to the Gulf with your tail between your legs. They are joined by two ‘website-specific installations’—exploring joblessness and speaking in tongues—which are scannable within these pages. THE STATE is a publishing practice that investigates South-South reorientations, alternative futurisms, transgressive cultural criticism, the transition from analogue to digital, and the sensuous architecture of this “printernet.”

For 10 days in April, graffiti artists from around the world gathered in Dakar, Senegal for the fifth annual Festigraff, the Festival international de Graffiti en Afrique/Senegal. While the term “graffiti” can carry a negative connotation, spray can art is Dakar’s most ubiquitous urban art expression, ranging from vandalism to approved and encouraged art. As in many West African urban areas, in Dakar, walls are everywhere, but what’s different here is how people use them: Each wall is an opportunity, a potential canvas. One can hardly walk, stroll or drive through nearly any district or community without catching some form of graffiti or wall art, on buildings, along highways, even commissioned on personal homes. Graffiti is an essential aspect of Dakar’s colourful landscape. The festival taps into this established art culture of using spray paint to create vertical wall art and drills down deep in this mode: Through the creation of new art murals and graffiti works, street parades, training young artists, conferences, roundtables and community concerts, the festival networks artists and builds off of community acceptance and appreciation. This year at the Biscuiterie de Médina, the festival created a graffiti village, where artists painted walls, vendors set up shops and music blared, creating a creative community of artists, art lovers and art in a tightly knit space. “We must be precise in differentiating between graffiti as its done abroad and its role here in Senegal,” Ati explains. “Here, it’s a message to speak with the people: Speaking against violence, speaking for good education, speaking for good citizenry, speaking so that we know our history, speaking to listen less to politicians and seeking more to address the real problems in Senegalese life…We use our spray to speak for those who can’t.”