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.
Jobs and Announcements
Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor
by Paul Farmer
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.
Announcement: New Publication from Southern African AIDS Training
Southern African AIDS Training Programme (SAT) is pleased to announce our latest publication "Counselling Guidelines on Stress Management". SAT is a regional collaboration that supports community responses to HIV and AIDS through in-depth partnerships in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe and wider networking, skills exchange and lesson sharing throughout the region. SAT funding and skills building activities support partners in a wide range of relevant activities - HIV prevention, HIV and AIDS care and support, impact mitigation, networking and information exchange, HIV-related advocacy on gender and human/child rights. SAT partners are operating at community, national and regional levels.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29881
Announcement: Selection of NGO Liaison Committee-UNAIDS PCB
This is to inform you that the selection process for the vacancies in the NGO Liaison Committee of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board from North America, Europe, LAC and Africa regions has been completed. As you may know, the UNAIDS PCB has five seats reserved for NGO sector delegates on a regional basis. Each delegate NGO has an Alternate.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29880
BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE WTO: THE REAL WORLD OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS
Fatoumata Jawara And Aileen Kwa
This important book on the politics of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which takes the lid off how the WTO really works, and what really happened before, at, and after the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha in 2001, on the basis of interviews with 33 Geneva-based delegates to the WTO and 10 Secretariat staff members. This is the ammunition the critics of the WTO have been waiting for. It reveals the systematic subversion of an ostensibly democratic system to ensure that the "agreements" that are reached are those the major powers - primarily the US and the European Union - want, irrespective of the views of interests of most developing countries, who form the great majority of the membership.
International Health Systems Management Program
Galillee College, Israel, will hold an international workshop for health professionals, the Health Systems Management Program, between November 20 - December 8, 2003. Tuition scholarships are available for qualified candidates that are citizens of a developing country in Africa (Living expenses and airfare are not included.) For more information, email rgottlieb@galilcol.ac.il or visit the Galillee College website: http://www.galilcol.ac.il/health.htm
International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH) 3rd International Conference June 10, 11 and 12, 2004 - Durban, South Africa
Call for Abstracts Deadline for Submission: December 1st, 2003
The 3rd International Conference of the International Society for Equity in Health will be hosted by the Health Systems Trust (HST), a South African-based NGO, the Southern African Regional Network on Equity in Health (EQUINET) and the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA), an international consortium of initiatives to support health equity. The meeting will bring together researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others concerned with equity in health to develop an international health agenda for governments, universities and organisations all over the world.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29871