It's time to register for the 16th Canadian Conference on International Health (CCIH). This year's conference is being held on October 25–28, 2009 in Ottawa, Canada. The Conference convenes more than 500 participants from 44 countries. It also creates a unique networking forum for practitioners, researchers, educators, policy makers and community advocates working at the intersection of health and development within and outside Canada, to share knowledge, experience and promote innovation and collaborative action. It provides a peer review process for individuals and organisations involved in health development, building knowledge and strengthening programmes in international health. The themes of the Conference are: Pathways to Global Health Competence; An Ethical View of Health Equity: Trends and Challenges; Global Health Diplomacy: A Tool for Global Health and Justice; and Thinking Globally/Acting Locally: The Reality and Challenges for the Future.
Jobs and Announcements
The Division of Dramatic Art, in collaboration with Drama for Life, Wits School of the Arts, is organising the 2009 Africa Research Conference in Applied Drama and Theatre. This year's conference will aim to facilitate dialogue across disciplines concerning the role of drama and theatre in HIV/AIDS education, prevention and rehabilitation, with the theme, ‘Interrogating drama and theatre research and aesthetics within an interdisciplinary context of HIV/AIDS’. The conference seeks to offer an opportunity for in-depth research, innovative practice and network building for academics and practitioners working within applied drama and theatre, and associated fields of study. The conference conversation will centre on research paradigms, the aesthetics of the art form, and interfacing with other disciplines. The main topics are: interrogating research as practice and practice as research in applied drama and theatre in the context of HIV/AIDS, the aesthetics of drama and theatre within the context of interdisciplinary demands, and applied drama and theatre as an interdisciplinary field.
The World Health Organization is inviting authors to submit articles as a contribution to a special theme issue that will explore the challenges of health worker retention in remote and rural areas. Much is known already about the factors that influence health workers’ choices of location and their decisions to go to, stay in or leave these areas. However, there is very little evidence on specific operational solutions and recommendations that countries can adapt to their specific context in responding to this challenge; in particular evidence is lacking on the design, implementation and evaluation of these strategies. Papers should aim at filling the gaps in the current knowledge on costs of implementing rural retention strategies and incentive schemes, and the extent to which context influences the design, implementation and the impact of various strategies. Innovative methodological papers that examine the monitoring and impact evaluation of various strategies are also encouraged, in particular with a view to understanding the long-term effects and sustainability of retention strategies.
Poverty and inequality are getting worse in developing countries as a result of the global economic crisis. Poor families are eating less, being evicted from their homes, and having to pull children out of school. All of this is exacerbated by the effects of high food prices, the failure of rich countries to deliver on their aid promises, and the growing harmful impacts of climate change. Oxfam was at the G8 Summit in Italy lobbying to get rich country heads of state to boost development aid, tackle climate change, and invest in developing country agriculture so that poor countries are less reliant on food aid. Once again, the G8 leaders let down the world's poorest by reneging on the promises made at the previous Summit. Take action – join Oxfam's Big Promise and let's all show world leaders how to keep a promise!
The theme for the Geneva Health Forum 2010 is 'Globalisation, Crisis, and Health Systems: Confronting Regional Perspectives'. Abstract submission is now officially open. The list of abstract themes has been finalised: health threats and access to health at times of crisis, health governance and policies, healthcare delivery and access to medicines, mobility and migration, trade and health, and health information, training and technologies. For more information on the Geneva Health Forum in general, you can visit their website: www.genevahealthforum.org
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.
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.