Jobs and Announcements

Lawyers for Human Rights: National Director, South Africa
Application closing date: 1 October 2017

With six offices spread around the country, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) has a national footprint and offers specialist public interest legal services in key programme areas such as refugee and migrant rights, land reform, housing, environmental justice, penal reform, gender equality, worker rights and strategic litigation. LHR is seeking to appoint a National Director to lead the organisation with various human rights programmes and law clinics around the country. The candidate will be required to provide strategic thinking, positioning and management of LHR and manage the organisations programmes and law clinics effectively. The candidate will represent the organisation and advocate with government, multilateral organisation, the United Nations and other relevant institutions, and coordinate closely with programs managers on fundraising. The candidate will need to identify and build strategic partnerships and networks and foster meaningful relationships and have a close and interactive relationship with the LHR Board on developmental issues and be accountable to the Board.

Rural Health Conference 2017
22-25 September 2017, North West Province, South Africa

The Rural Health Conference is an vibrant event bringing together doctors, therapists, nurses, clinical associates, health students and NGOs, always in a rural location. Attendees will meet up and share ideas and friendship with colleagues from around South Africa and Africa. The themes for the conference include Recognising Rural Health Challenges, Working together – Better and Smarter, Use of innovations in Communication Technology and Healthcare, Using Trans-disciplinary Teamwork to find innovative solutions and Working together to Advocate for better Rural Health.

Smile Train: Programme Manager
Application closing date: 8 September 2017

Smile Train is an international children’s charity that provides 100%-free cleft repair surgery and comprehensive cleft care to children in 85+ developing countries. Their sustainable model empowers local doctors to provide cleft care in their own communities. The overall purpose of the role is to devise, plan and implement local strategies to achieve the mission and goals of Smile Train in terms of high-quality and safe cleft lip and palate care through effective management of programmes and partnerships in Southern Africa. Key responsibilities for the position include instituting suitable business processes and necessary control mechanisms for the continual monitoring of financial, programmatic, and medical targets in the region and receiving, reviewing, and analysing all grant requests from local stakeholders. The candidate will need to ensure all operations are legally and financially transparent and in compliance with all local laws and laws of the U.S. that apply to local business practices and lead efforts to share Smile Train’s global messaging locally and help to build the brand and awareness of Smile Train programs in Southern Africa. The candidate will be responsible for capturing and sharing stories, images, and videos that help to tell Smile Train’s story and that could be used across the organisation to further Smile Train’s mission. Lastly the candidate will be required to build and nurture the ‘Smile Train’ brand, developing an image of a focused, committed, ethical and caring organisation upholding and furthering ‘best practices’ in cleft care.

UFS: Master in Development Studies
Application closing date: 29 September 2017

The Centre for Development Support within the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State is presenting a two-year part-time, interdisciplinary degree - Master of Development Studies. This programme combines distance-based learning with five one-week contact sessions held at the University f the Free State. The programme is a qualification aimed at those in NGOs, government, parastatals or private sector. Candidates with an Honours degree or postgraduate diploma or candidates with a degree and extensive development related work experience are invited to apply. The compulsory first year modules include studies in development, underdevelopment and poverty, governance and development, development and the environment, applied development research and project management. Students select two elective modules with a mini-dissertation in the second year.

World Trade Organisation Public Forum 2017 — “Trade: Behind the Headlines”
Registration closing date: 12 September 2017

At a time when the debate on trade has rarely been as prominent or controversial, the WTO's 2017 Public Forum, "Trade: Behind the Headlines", offers an opportunity to go beyond the rhetoric and examine in detail the realities of trade – the opportunities it offers and the challenges it can bring. The Forum will provide a platform for discussions among policy makers, civil society representatives, business people and researchers as they consider how to make trade work for more people and ensure that the trading system is as inclusive as it can be. The opportunities that trade generates for greater growth and development and its ability to create jobs, raise incomes and reduce prices is, for some, only part of the story. There is a growing feeling that now is the time to consider the broader picture. While trade has indeed pulled millions out of poverty, the reality is that for some the experience has been different. The Public Forum is the WTO’s largest annual outreach event.

Adolescent and Youth Health Policy Short Course
Deadline for applications: 25 August 2017

This short-course in Cape Town, South Africa, has been developed to support staff of governmental and non-governmental organisations working at national, provincial and district levels, in the implementation of the new Adolescent & Youth Health Policy 2017 and allied policies. It aims to build the capacity of those with management responsibilities for the implementation of policies through improved knowledge about adolescence, key health problems affecting young people and priority evidence-based interventions to address them and strengthen programming skills. This course is provided by the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, housed within the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre (DTHC) at the University of Cape Town.

Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Humanities Call: Meaning-making Research Initiatives (MRI)
Deadline for applications: 15 September 2017

Within the framework of its 2017-2021 Strategic Plan, CODESRIA introduces Meaning-Making Research Initiative (MRI) as the principal tool for supporting research. Like previous tools, MRI will focus on supporting research that contributes to agendas for imagining, planning and creating African futures. The Council is issuing this special call for proposals because of the peculiar challenges that teaching and research in the Humanities are encountering in African universities today. It is also motivated by the important contributions that scholarship in the Humanities can make to an understanding of Africa and efforts to construct African futures. CODESRIA seeks projects that broach new and interesting questions and employs innovative methods to address these issues. Projects that address important social challenges on the continent and that are rooted in conversations between the Humanities and other fields of knowledge like the social and natural sciences are strongly encouraged. Work that examines on the status and importance of the Humanities in society and reflects on how to develop humanities teaching and research in universities are also encouraged. Group initiatives: MRIs under this special call should be groups of researchers from one country or multiple countries. Each group should have between 3 and 5 members and should take into account CODESRIA’s core principles of gender, linguistic, intergenerational, interdisciplinary diversity. All applications must engage with CODESRIA’s 2017-2021 thematic priorities and cross-cutting issues: democratic processes, governance, citizenship and security in Africa; ecologies, economies and societies in Africa; higher education dynamics in a changing Africa.

Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2018)
8 – 12 October 2018, Liverpool, UK

The Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is organised every two years by Health Systems Global to bring together the full range of players involved in health systems and policy research and practice. The Alma Ata vision of ‘Health for All’ remains as compelling today as it was in 1978, as reflected in goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But the world has changed in forty years. Despite improved health outcomes, there remain extraordinary challenges for health equity and social inclusion, such as demographic and disease transitions, conflicts and their subsequent migrations, pluralistic health systems and markets, and climate change. Political systems still marginalise those most in need. Yet there are new opportunities for health systems to achieve universal coverage. The Fifth Global Symposium will advance conversations and collaborations on new ways of financing health; delivering services; and engaging the health workforce, new social and political alliances, and new applications of technologies to promote health for all.

Grand Challenges Canada Funding Opportunities
Deadline for applications: 3 August 2017

Through the Stars in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Request for Proposals, Grand Challenges Canada seeks bold ideas for products, services and implementation models that could transform how persistent challenges in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health are addressed in low- and middle-income countries. Of particular interest to Grand Challenges Canada are innovations to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in humanitarian contexts, notably among internally displaced and refugee populations, as well as innovations that improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls, so that they are empowered and have greater influence over their lives and futures.

MPhil in Public Mental Health: Call for Applications
Deadline for Applications 1 September 2017

The Alan J. Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health (CPMH), a joint initiative of the Psychology Department at Stellenbosch University and the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town, is an independent inter-disciplinary academic research and teaching centre for public mental health promotion and service development in Africa. The CPMH is proud to invite applications from across the African continent for the MPhil in Public Mental Health in 2018. A key gap in current mental health professional training in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa is an orientation to public mental health. This means an orientation to the mental health needs of populations, and the policies, laws and services that are required to meet those needs. The training offered by the Centre provides clinicians, health service managers, policy makers and NGO workers with crucial skills to enable them to plan and evaluate the services that they deliver and manage; lobby effectively for mental health; take on leadership roles in the strengthening of mental health systems; and conduct research in various aspects of public mental health in Africa. The MPhil in Public Mental Health is a part-time research degree that aims to develop advanced research skills, enabling participants to undertake their own research projects (such as evaluating services, policies and interventions) as well as interpret research findings for mental health policy and practice. The programme is designed to be accessible to practitioners who work full-time, and who are from a range of backgrounds: social work, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, occupational therapy, nursing, health economics, public mental health, public health, health service management, policy making and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The training aims to build the professional capacity and leadership of the participants in their work, while contributing to knowledge generation in Africa. The degree requires the completion of a 3-week residential training module in research methodology for public mental health in Cape Town and the preparation of a dissertation of a minimum of 20 000 words, in either monograph or publication ready format.

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