This new journal from the Faculty of Medicine, Makerere Medical School in Kampala, was started in August 2001. It has rapidly grown in reputation as a leading publication on health issues in Africa. Just in March 2003 the journal was accepted for citation on MEDLINE, INDEX MEDICUS and PUBMED. It is abstracted by African Journals online (AJOL).
Jobs and Announcements
Marketization, Daily Life and HIV in South Africa: Call for Proposals
Municipal Services Project (MSP)
The Municipal Services Project (MSP) (www.queensu.ca/msp) is a multi-partner research, policy and educational initiative examining the restructuring of municipal services in Southern Africa. Research partners are the International Labour Research and Information Group (Cape Town), the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), the Human Sciences Research Council (Durban), Equinet (Harare), the South African Municipal Workers Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and Queen's University (Canada). The project is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada. During the first phase of the project (2000 - 2003), the primary focus of our research was on the impact of policy reforms such as privatization and cost recovery on the delivery of basic municipal services (specifically water, sanitation, waste management and electricity). Most of this research was conducted in South Africa. We are now entering a second phase, which will focus more specifically on the impact of policy ‘reform’ on health and will expand the research to include more countries in Southern Africa.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29980
SOUTHERN AFRICA: PROGRAM MANAGER
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
LWR is now recruiting for a Program Manager for HIV/AIDS Projects - based in South Africa - to support churches and related ecumenical or faith-based organisations in Southern Africa to develop programs to address the AIDS crisis in impoverished communities - based on need rather than on race, ethnicity, religion, or creed. This is a temporary position with a two-year contract with no possibility of renewal.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29979
Visiting Scholar in Feminist Perspectives on Globalization
2004-2005 Academic Year
The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's Studies at Carleton University and the Institute of Women's Studies at the University of Ottawa, with the support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), are launching a four year project to allow scholars from the developing world, working in the field of “Gender and Development”, to spend a research term at their institutions. The “Visiting Scholar in Feminist Perspectives on Globalization” will contribute in facilitating the expansion of gender and development research at both universities, and also provide a unique opportunity for collaboration between feminist scholars in Canada and the developing world.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29993
Equity and HIV/AIDS: ICASA Satellite Session
Tuesday 23 September, 6 - 8 pm
Equinet and Oxfam would like to invite participants at the ICASA conference to a satellite session on equity and HIV/AIDS. The session is designed to discuss the often misunderstood meaning of 'equity' and how this is relevant to developing countries and their HIV/AIDS crisis. It will discuss if there is a need to develop frames of reference that are equity-based and not just poverty-based; and it will bring to attention the inter-relationships between wealth and poverty; and between justice and aid.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29943
Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor
by Paul Farmer
This book is Farmer's account of the disenfranchised poor whose lives so often end in tragic and yet, he contends, wholly predictable ways. They are victims of “structural violence,'' falling prey to treatable illnesses, preventable hunger, and crime, all for the sole reason of having no money.
south africa: HIV/AIDS Global Programme Coordinator
Oxfam
Oxfam is implementing a global strategy to respond to HIV/AIDS based on programme experience and global analysis. We are recruiting for a programme coordinator to support the integration of HIV/AIDS into Oxfam's programme and to establish and lead a global Centre of Learning based in South Africa.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29937
Training Course in Consultancy Skills in International Cooperation in Health
10 - 28 November, 2003, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
In international development co-operation there is an increasing demand for regional experts and consultants to conduct formal evaluations and write comprehensive consultancy reports. Despite the expert's professional competence, reports and documents often do not satisfy the expected quality standards of international agencies. These weaknesses result from lack of familiarity with formal expectations and 'unwritten' rules of international agencies. This course intends to improve knowledge and skills in planning, writing, editing as well as how to assess the quality of consultancy reports in the field of international public health.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29928
Workshop on the Ethics of Research Related to Healthcare in Developing Countries
12 - 14 February 2004, Cape Town, South Africa
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics published a Report, the ethics of research related to healthcare in developing countries, in April 2002. The Report recommends that medical research in developing countries which is funded by organisations in wealthier countries is crucial but must be subject to rigorous ethical safeguards. The Report provides an ethical framework for anyone who is designing or conducting externally-sponsored research in the developing world. A follow-up Workshop will be held in February 2004 to explore developments in this area since the publication of the Report.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29930
AIDS in South Africa: The Invisible Cure
Helen Epstein
This piece explores what the author describes as a "striking and deeply mysterious" denial of the reality of AIDS in South Africa. This country has one of the highest infection rates in the world and an equally high level of awareness about how to avoid being infected. Why, the author asks, have so many HIV prevention programmes - like those addressing high-risk youth - been so radically unsuccessful? Epstein explains that many of the efforts to change the sexual behaviour of young people in South Africa have tapped into what youth seem to respond to most readily - material culture, images of beauty and glamour, and fun/play.