Previously known as the African Institute for Agrarian Studies(AIAS), and renamed to SMAIAS in 2016 in honour of its late Founder and Executive Director, Professor Sam Moyo, the SMAIAS in Harare has been in operation for over thirteen years. The SMAIAS aims to enhance Africa’s agrarian transformation by promoting informed participation towards effective land and agrarian policies and reform, by means of Pan- African and South-South partnerships, interdisciplinary research initiatives, policy dialogues, training, and information dissemination. It interacts with various organisations and countries to assist them in developing capacity for policy formulation and research. It also facilitates policy dialogue among governments, academics, civil society and others on land and agrarian developments, especially on the land rights of marginalised social groups. Under the overall authority of the Board of Trustees and the direct supervision of the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, the Executive Director will be expected to provide intellectual, administrative and strategic leadership to the secretariat of the SMAIAS. Only African citizens will be considered for this post.
Jobs and Announcements
The African Health Economics & Policy Association (AfHEA) was set up in March 2009 as a membership-based non-profit association of Africans and non-Africans including students working on Africa-related issues in the fields of health economics, financing and policy. The theme of the 2016 AfHEA conference will be: “The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Grand Convergence and Health in Africa". The conference aims to: help define the research agenda and identify research gaps regarding the conference theme; ensure a minimum of 20 African countries and 200 participants from Africa (both Francophone and Anglophone) attend conference; attendance from at least 10 globally recognised experts on African health economics and policy; at least 120 abstracts presented; publish all abstracts and posters of conference both in hard copy and electronically (online); identify currently emerging and priority research areas for African countries and regional bodies; outputs from the AfHEA conference are translated into policy notes and communicated to decision makers. The target audience is researchers, policy makers, health professionals, academics and students, practitioners from Ministries of Health, Finance and related agencies, individuals from the NGO and community-based organisations, and others with a research or policy interest in the subject areas covered by AfHEA.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites applications from African scholars to fill a vacant position of Programme Officer (Research) in its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. This position is categorized as belonging to the senior staff of the Council and as such is filled on the basis of an international announcement. The successful candidate will work as a member of the Secretariat under the overall supervision of the Executive Secretary of the Council. For further details see the website.
The recurrent allusion to the “globalisation of the social sciences” validates the idea of the dominance of Western scientific norms and practices over those of “the rest of the world”. In preparation for the next issue of Méthod(e)s, CODESRIA invites colleagues to critically engage with the production of methods and knowledge in the social sciences: that explore modes of domination and resistance in the social sciences. The editors are particularly interested in seeing contributions based on experiences in the field, using empirical materials. Various formats are invited. For further information visit the website.
The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) is soliciting nominations for the second annual Paula Kantor Award for Excellence in Field Research. The 2016 award will be given to a young female researcher who is a citizen of a sub-Saharan African country in order to recognise and honour outstanding achievement in the fields of gender and empowerment of women and girls. The 2016 Paula Kantor Award for Excellence in Field Research will be conferred to the winner at the launch of ICRW’s Africa Regional Office in December in Kampala, Uganda. Nominations must be made by a third-party. The 2016 award will again be given as part of ICRW’s annual Champions for Change awards, which honours the work of thought-leaders and visionaries. The award will provide the recipient recognition and bring greater visibility to the researcher’s work and to the populations on which they focus. At the awards ceremony, the recipient of the award will have the opportunity to present in front of an esteemed global audience, comprising those in the development, business, NGO, and government sectors, and will receive opportunities to promote their research.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites applications from suitably qualified senior African scholars for the position of Executive Secretary in its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. This position, which will fall vacant in 2017, is the most senior management post in the Executive Secretariat and the successful candidate will be expected to function as the leader of the institution and a diverse team of staff under the overall supervision of the Executive Committee of the Council. Established in 1973 as a pioneering, independent, pan-African and not-for-profit organisation for the development of social research in Africa, CODESRIA is today widely recognised as the premier institution on the continent for the generation and dissemination of multidisciplinary research knowledge in the social sciences and humanities. The position of Executive Secretary is a key one both in the development of the programme mandate of the Council and the realisation of the strategic institutional objectives set by the triennial General Assembly of its members.
WHO's new e-learning course on health financing policy for UHC has now been launched. This e-learning course comprises six modules which cover the core functions of health financial policy as conceptualised by WHO. Each module is divided into a number of sub-topics. This is a foundational course which targets participants of various levels of experience and expertise. The course is designed to be used in a variety of ways: as preparation for those who will attend a WHO face-to-face course, for those who are for various reasons unable to attend a face-to-face course, and for those who have already attended courses and wish to refresh their knowledge. Individual modules can also be used as part of a programme of blended capacity building. The course is also designed to work seamlessly on a range of devices, operating systems, and browser in a responsive fashion, in order to maximise ease of use. Module 1 provides an overview of the goals of universal health coverage, health financing and what UHC brings to health financing policy. The following modules cover revenue raising, pooling revenues, purchasing and benefit package design.
The Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research will be held in Vancouver at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The theme for 2016 is “Resilient and responsive health systems for a changing world”. The Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is hosted every two years by HSG to bring together its members with the full range of players involved in health systems and policy research. There is currently no other international gathering that serves the needs of this community. The Symposium aims to share new state-of-the-art evidence; review the progress and challenges towards implementation of the global agenda of priority research; identify and discuss the approaches to strengthen the scientific rigour of health systems research including concepts, frameworks, measures and methods; and facilitate greater research collaboration and learning communities across disciplines, sectors, initiatives and countries. Participants will include researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers, civil society and other stakeholders from relevant national and regional associations and professional organisations. The program will include plenary addresses from world experts, as many as 12-15 concurrent sessions made up from abstracts and other proposals, an estimated 600 poster presentations, a vibrant marketplace and many other networking opportunities.
This free online course will explore the intersection of medicine, medical anthropology and the creative arts. Through each of its six weeks, participants visit a new aspect of human life and consider it from the perspectives of people working in health sciences, social sciences and the arts. The course will introduce participants to the emerging field of medical humanities and the concept of whole person care, via these six themes: The Heart of the Matter: A Matter of the Heart, Children’s Voices and Healing, Mind, Art and Play, Reproduction and Innovation, Tracing Origins, Death and the Corpse. Participants will question the propensity to separate the body from the mind in healthcare, consider what defines humanity, and share points of connection and difference between art and medicine. Contributors to the course will include a psychologist, heart surgeon, pathologist, oncologist, geneticist, sociologist, poet and visual artist. They will pose critical questions about how we deal with health, healing and being human. Each has been filmed on location in Cape Town, including at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, the Heart of Cape Town Museum, and the Pathology Learning Centre.
High rates of maternal death and teen pregnancy persist in West and Central Africa. Research and programming efforts are not sustainably reducing these rates. The challenge is how to link the evidence on useful health interventions with evidence on how to effectively deliver the interventions within the health systems of West and Central Africa. This project aims to build the foundation for delivering better maternal, new born, child and adolescent health care by addressing this gap and enhancing the capacity of researchers and leaders. As part of the South-South collaborative approach the program is partnering with consortiums led from the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and is offering PhD fellowships within the programme, including using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods for building explanations for what mechanisms underpinned the outcomes observed as a result of the program through the doctoral level training of young researchers from Anglophone and Francophone countries and institutions in the sub-region. The PhD fellows /researchers in Maternal, New born, Child and Adolescent health and Health Policy and Systems research will develop their thesis projects as sub-projects of the larger monitoring and evaluation. Participation in the project is a full time commitment for four years. The successful fellow will be based in the project office, which is currently located in the Dodowa Health Research Centre of the Ghana Health Service.