The Second African Local Summit 2013, which is being organised by a Ghanaian based non-governmental organisation, will take a look at the Africa’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2015. The theme is: “Sustainable Development Goals and Africa beyond 2015: The Role of African Diaspora”. The summit aims to develop policies and programmes necessary for understanding the complexities and practical implications of the Africa Diaspora in socio-economic development and to foster appropriate relations between international development actors. The proposed outcome is to develop policies and programmes necessary of understanding the complexities and practical implications of the Africa Diaspora in socio-economic development of Africa and also foster appropriate relations between International Development Actors and the Africa Diaspora in the Post 2015 process. Moreover, the summit shall seek to advocate, promote and strengthen the Africa Diasporas role in development by creating a window of opportunity for engagement.
Jobs and Announcements
The Social Aspects of HIV and AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA), established in 2001 by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), is an alliance of partners established to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent the further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation in sub-Saharan Africa. The SAHARA 7 conference theme is "Translating evidence into action: Engaging with communities, policies, human rights, gender, service delivery".
The Sixth South African AIDS Conference will be held in Durban from 18-21 June 2013. The conference theme is "Building on our successes: Integrating responses". As South Africa enters the fourth decade of HIV and AIDS, the conference aims to look back at lessons learnt and reflect, celebrate the gains made, and find ways to build on past successes by integrating HIV with other health responses. The conference will bring together various members of the HIV research community, including clinicians, academics, civil society and government.
The Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is holding its first Rehabilitation Conference in September 2013. The conference will host speakers from diverse disciplinary fields on a range of themes such as: policy: influencing development and implementation; evidence for action: a research agenda; responsive rehabilitation service delivery; and optimising human resourcing for rehabilitation.
The Africa Urban Infrastructure Summit will seek to bridge the information gap in African urban infrastructure and create a platform to develop the market for African urban infrastructure and real estate investment. The aim of the summit is to bring together national and local government officials, urban planners, designers, developers, facility managers and potential investors to share ideas, develop business opportunities and discuss current projects, case-studies, lessons learned, future challenges and new opportunities. Participants will be able to network with other participants and presenters; and discover the opportunities behind key industries: "smart and green" solutions; renewable energy; construction; ICT; water management; sanitation; and healthcare.
The East, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) Health Community in collaboration with the International Best Practices (IBP) Consortium will host the Seventh Best Practices Forum (BPF), which will precede the 23rd Director’s Joint Consultative Committee (DJCC) Meeting. The two events will be held from 12 to 14 August 2013. The BPF and the DJCC will bring together Senior Officials (who include health experts, health researchers and heads of health training institutions) from Ministries of Health of the ECSA Health Community member states and diverse collaborating partners from the region and beyond. Their aim will be to identify best practices and key policy issues, approaches and making recommendations to strengthen the response to emerging and re-emerging health concerns in the ECSA Region. Individuals and institutions are invited to submit abstracts for presentation of papers under the BPF. The sub-themes are: integration of non-communicable and communicable disease programmes; addressing adolescent health issues; and strengthening global health diplomacy for equity in public health delivery.
PHASA and AFPHA are calling for abstracts for their two conferences, which will run jointly in South Africa. Contributors may write on any of the following six themes: leadership for a lasting legacy; social determinants of health; burden of disease, disability and population health; improving the performance of the health system; policy advocacy and community action for health; and public health education, teaching and training.
The theme of the 2013 session of the Institute on Health, Politics and Society in Africa is “Health, Environment and Development in Africa”. The interface between health and the environment is an overriding challenge for development in Africa today. In many African countries, health is often the source of the slow pace of development processes. On the other hand, with their integration in the global market, African economies have become highly dependent on the environment and the exploitation of natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable. But the environment is not only physical; it also takes into account the socio-cultural aspects of the populations living there, in terms of norms, values and social practices which also pose health problems. African Social Science researchers are therefore invited to reflect, taking into account the gender dimension, on the interface between health and the environment, an important issue for the development of the continent. For every session, CODESRIA will appoint a director from the academic and research community to provide intellectual leadership for the Institute, as well as resource persons and laureates. Applications are now open for all three types of positions.
To move forward the debate around universal health care (UHC) there is an urgent need to define a way to measure progress towards UHC, both at global and country level. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been working with the World Bank to define a set of possible indicators that member states can use to monitor their own progress. A subset of these indicators could be used if UHC is accepted as part of the post-2015 development framework. All non-governmental organisations working in the health sector are invited to join the open discussion on how to measure UHC on 23 May at 13.30. Its aim is to open spaces for civil society organisations to feed into the process. Please confirm your participation as soon as possible. If you have any inquiries or need any further information, contact WHO at jeanteta@who.int or the email given below.
These two events will be held jointly in South Africa. The target audience is policy makers, public health academics and students, health professionals, health service managers and individuals from non-governmental and community-based health organisations. The joint conference will have as its focus, a scientific debate and discussion on strategies and action needed to move beyond the MDGs and on the public health legacy that we should leave, or want to, leave behind for the future generation. Speakers will include policy-makers, leading local and international academics and representatives of international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. Parallel workshops will precede the main conference, with wide-ranging topics to suit diverse interests.