In this blog Thandika Mkandawire writes about the role Nelson Mandela played in inspiring his generation of political activists.He writes that if the life imprisonment of Mandela seemed like a major reversal for African nationalism and a victory for the remaining racist and fascist regimes, Mandela's statement at the dock of the court on 20 April 1964 was one the most inspiring statements for his generation: “This is the struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But, if needs be, my Lord, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Mkandawire writes that four things strike him as to why the man is the most admired among Africans. One was Mandela's deep commitment to the liberation of the African people. A second was Mandela’s deep sense of duty and a warm sense of respect for the people he led and the movement to which he had been of selfless service. The third feature was Mandela’s eminently sane relationship to power and his contribution by example in his own exercise of power. The fourth was his commitment to democracy and rule of law.
Values, Policies and Rights
The process of mythologizing represents a contestation between symbolism and mythology, writes Firoze Manji. The greatest disservice that we could pay to Mandela is to allow the complexity, courage and humanity of his long life to be reduced to a fairy tale. Mandela represents for so many the finest values of courage, liberation and freedom.
Kofi Annan speaks with the unhurried, temperate tone of someone confident of being listened to. Last week the former UN secretary-general met his match, however, in the form of hundreds of Sowetan schoolchildren blowing vuvuzelas in a football stadium. "Silence please," Annan was forced to plea as his speech was interrupted, something that can rarely have happened to him at the UN general assembly or even mediating in Syria.
Annan warned the audience drawn from 190 countries that the benefits of globalisation have not been shared fairly and the gap between rich and poor is unsustainable. It is a theme that he shares further on in this interview with the Guardian. There must be greater accountability and transparency, he says, to ensure Africa's vast natural resources benefit all its people.
As a means of enforcing the justiciability of the right to health, on 3 March 2011, Petition Number 16 of 2011 on cases of maternal mortality was filed in Uganda’s Constitutional Court by the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) and others. This case argued, among others, that by not providing essential health services and commodities for pregnant women and their new-borns, Government was violating fundamental human rights guaranteed in the Constitution, including the right to health, the right to life, and the rights of women. However, court dismissed the case on grounds that the the constitutional court had no power to determine the matter. CEHURD appealed to the Supreme Court asserting that the petition was fully with in the mandate of the constitutional court. The hearing could not however be started because the government was not represented in court at the first hearing of the Appeal leading to its postponement.
This document presents the decisions and declarations of Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union 12 October 2013 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Following a week of intense negotiations, the Addis Ababa Declaration on Population and Development in Africa beyond 2014 was adopted on Friday, October 4, at the conclusion of the Ministerial Segment of the African Regional Conference on Population and Development. The declaration contains strong commitments by African States on sexual and reproductive health and rights. It calls for universal access to sexual and reproductive health information and services, with particular attention to the needs of adolescents, as well as emergency contraception, comprehensive sexuality education and critical services for survivors of violence against women and girls. It does not, however, call explicitly for the elimination of discrimination and violence in Africa based on sexual orientation and gender identity. At the press conference, the Task Force condemned the violence and discrimination endured by women and men in Africa based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
This article reports Zambia's First Lady, Dr Christine Kaseba-Sata, calling for an end to discrimination against sexual minorities. Speaking at a UNAIDS hosted reception, she said that the "silence around issues of Men who have Sex with Men should be stopped and no one should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. Rather, we should address reproductive health issues around this issue." She went further to assure people working in the sexual and reproductive health sector of her and the president's support.
SECTION27 hosted a Right to Food seminar on the 4th of November. This afforded the organisation and other stakeholders the opportunity to form a strategy to ensure the realisation of this critical but legislatively and judicially undefined right. The presentations given during the seminar can be accessed on the site. Attendees came from numerous organisations such as Action Aid, New Women’s Movement, COPAC, the Treatment Action Campaign, Foundation for Human Rights, Lawyers for Human Rights and Wits university.
This paper raises critical questions around the wide and growing enthusiasm for Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Typically defined as a health financing system based on pooling of funds to provide health coverage for a country’s entire population, it often takes the form of a ‘basic package’ of services made available through health insurance and provided by a growing private sector. Such programs are now zealously promoted by global health agencies, yet the evidence to support their implementation remains extremely thin. The paper argues that re-imagining public health care – rather than the private sellout of health systems via UHC – is the only way forward in building truly universal health outcomes.
Following consultation by the Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health on the FCGH in Geneva in May 2013, JALI and several partners who participated in the consultation developed a draft Framework for an FCGH. This is aimed at providing greater clarity on the principles and core content of the FCGH, building on the FCGH Manifesto. In the hopes of forging a broad consensus around this document, JALI is circulating the draft and calling for feedback on the Framework to improve it and ensure that it represents a shared vision. The Framework will then serve as a platform for a Campaign for an FCGH.