If you are an aid worker and have an opinion on how poorly (or well-) funded your organisation is, how competent your fellow aid workers are or how well the international humanitarian system works with local authorities, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) is looking for your input in their new ‘state of the humanitarian system’ review. Despite various evaluations and analyses of the humanitarian system some ‘very basic information’ on its size, reach, scope of action and capability remains unknown, said Paul Harvey, a humanitarian aid expert leading the review for ALNAP. The report will provide a descriptive mapping, a general performance assessment, and an analysis of major new developments in the humanitarian aid sector over the past three years. Any contributions to the online survey are welcome.
Jobs and Announcements
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) internship awards provide exposure to research for international development through a program of training in research management and grant administration under the guidance of IDRC programme staff. The internships start in January 2010 and are designed to provide hands-on learning experiences in research program management in the creation, dissemination and utilisation of knowledge from an international perspective. The intern will undertake a program of research on the topic submitted when competing for the internship award, and will be trained in the techniques of research management through hands-on experience with the Centre's policies and practices for grant administration under the mentorship of a Programme Officer. IDRC’s research activities focus on four programme areas: social and economic policy; environment and natural resource management; information and communication technologies for development; and innovation, policy and science.
The short film, Flight 208, which deals with health and related issues of inequality, is participating in the Humanity Explored Film Festival 2009. This is an online film festival. The festival is unique in the sense that the films are judged on the basis of how the audience rates them. We will be hapy if you could watch and rate and popularise these films which are connected with all the issues we care for. The film is satirical and shot across the globe with more than 208 persons from across the world. The film idea was triggered while the director was in Ecuador to attend and document the second People’s Health Assembly in 2005. It has already won awards and been screened at many prestigous film festivals. It’s seven minutes long.
Registration is now open for the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA) Conference Workshop. The programme consists of a number of workshops dealing with gender and rights-based participatory monitoring and evaluation (M&E), participatory outcome mapping, understanding project logic model as a tool for conducting clarificatory evaluation, theory-based impact evaluation, the dynamics in building M&E systems to enhance the utilisation of M&E practices and findings in programme development, management and implementation, and a systematic approach to evaluate M&E systems to enhance system strengthening for effective management and utilisation of information. The workshops have been developed to offer training opportunities to beginners as well as seasoned professionals who wish to sharpen their skills and are offered by competent and reputable trainers based locally and internationally.
The central focus of this conference, organised by the Federation of European Societies for Tropical Medicine and International Health (FESTMIH), will be ‘Equity, Human Rights and Access to Care’. This event aims to deal with the classical aspects of tropical medicine including basic science, diagnostics/therapeutics and disease control, and will include an emphasis on transferability of research results into actual practice. Discussions will also address the North-South gap in health research, in all main aspects, such as how much space is devoted to global health in medical journals, the role of researchers from the South in relevant publications, what share of research is actually devoted to priority areas, important gaps that remain to be filled in research in tropical medicine and international health, and difficulties experienced in financing health system research.
The 2009 Pan African Health Expo and Conference will take place concurrently with the ACSA Disability and Special Needs Expo and Conference, and its main objective is promoting the medical industry, including medical technology and pharmaceuticals throughout Africa. The Pan African Health 2009 Healthcare Funding conference is a one day event and centres around how South Africa will fund it’s hospitals and other medical needs with economists and government advising on how it will be achieved. Exhibitors at the show include healthcare solution providers, medical technology and equipment, diagnostics and medical supplies, disposables, pharmaceutical products, surgical products and devices, medical information technology and education, and medical service providers. The expo is aimed to attract visitors from various sectors like private clinics, government hospitals, government health officials, medical professionals, donor funding organisations, non-governmental organisations involved in healthcare and medical aids and administrators. Register at the website address provided.
The Broker is hosting the debate on 'Health for All' following up on the special report published in Issue 12, which argues that there is an urgent need to improve universal access to health care by means of a radical new approach to health. All contributions to this debate are now available online at the address given below. For those of you who didn't have time yet to respond, please feel free to join the discussion now. You can add comments directly to individual contributions online.
The draft code sets out guiding principles and voluntary international standards for recruitment of health workers, to increase the consistency of national policies and discourage unethical practices, while promoting an equitable balance of interests among health workers, source countries and destination countries. Consistent with contemporary international legal practice, the initial draft of the code also aims to establish an international procedural structure to foster national dialogue, commitment and action on health worker migration. It does not aim to comprehensively address and resolve all of the complex substantive issues raised by the international recruitment of health personnel. Rather, its goal is to provide a straightforward framework and platform on which to launch negotiations. World Health Organization member states may potentially consider and elaborate more detailed national and international commitments in the final version of the code or in future international instruments. Feedback comments are invited on the World Health Organization paper on the code.
The Erasmus Observatory on Health Law will be hosting the upcoming International Conference on Healthcare and Trade on the 10th and 11th of December, 2009. The conference will focus on the influence of the law of both the European Union and the World Trade Organization on trade in health services, health insurance services and health goods (pharmaceuticals). The application of the European Community Treaty, the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to national regulation of health services, health insurance services and pharmaceuticals raises questions of applicability of, compatibility with and possible exceptions to the provisions of these instruments. Further research and discussion in this area is ongoing. The conference aims to contribute to the discussion, attempting to formulate both legal and economic answers. Please refer to the programme and the application form attached to this news item.
The Bulletin of the World Health Organization would appreciate assistance from Bulletin readers to address the question: What is a fair test of a health-care policy? There are three ways in which you can do this: provide examples of randomised evaluations of health-care policies, provide examples of compelling evidence from non-randomised evaluations of health-care policies and provide early examples of treatment evaluations If you are aware of examples relevant to any of the three categories described above, please send copies of them, identifying the key passages and providing a translation if the text is not in English, by post, facsimile or e-mail. Postal address: Bulletin of the World Health Organization Project, c/o James Lind Initiative, Summertown Pavilion, Middle Way, Oxford OX2 7LG, England. Fax: +44 1865 516 311. Your help will be acknowledged explicitly unless you instruct otherwise.