The People’s Health Movement ((PHM) has significantly advanced in the campaign's expansion since its last update in May 2008. India, Ecuador, Zimbabwe and South Africa are involved in the campaign without receiving funding. New PHM circles have been formed in the last three months in Mali, Kenya, Morocco and Uganda and they will be submitting campaign proposals shortly. The countries that have almost completed the assessment are now eligible for a small additional funding to hold a national workshop in which to present the results to the government, UN agencies, international and national NGOs and the media. Any country not mentioned here is welcome to inquire with PHM how they can get a PHM circle going so as to launch the campaign.
Values, Policies and Rights
PHM's global right to health and health care campaign: Progress report January 2009
People’s Health Movement, 2009
Regional competitive intelligence: Benchmarking and policy-making
Huggins R: Regional Studies, 12 January 2009
Benchmarking exercises have become increasingly popular within the sphere of regional policy-making. This paper analyses the concept of regional benchmarking and its links with regional policy-making processes. It develops a typology of regional benchmarking exercises and benchmarkers, and critically reviews the literature. It is argued that critics of regional benchmarking fail to take account of the variety and development of regional benchmarking systems. It is suggested that while benchmarking exercises are informing policy adaptation and innovation, they have been constrained by political and financial factors. It is concluded that regional benchmarking is facilitating the heightened regional interaction necessitated by globalisation.
The need for a national cancer policy in Malawi
Mlombe Y, Othieno-Abinya N, Dzamalala C and Chrisi J: Malawi Medical Journal 20(4):124-127, 2008
Cancer is causing a lot of suffering and death in Africa but is not considered a major health problem in Africa. This needs to change. Cancer should be given equal emphasis to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. A national cancer policy is required in Malawi to develop and improve evidence-based cancer prevention, early diagnosis, curative and palliative therapy. A national cancer policy is crucial to ensure a priotised, clear, coordinated and sustained fight against cancer. When no policy exists, events are likely to be random, stakeholders and practitioners in the fight against cancer may not agree on how to proceed, may duplicate efforts or may neglect areas that would have greater nationwide impact resulting in poor quality activities and haphazard development.
Translating research into maternal health care policy: A qualitative case study of the use of evidence in policies for the treatment of eclampsia and pre-eclampsia in South Africa
Daniels K and Lewin S: Health Research Policy and Systems, 17 December 2008
Few empirical studies of research utilisation have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries. This paper explores how research information, in particular findings from randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews, informed policy making and clinical guideline development for the use of magnesium sulphate in the treatment of eclampsia and pre-eclampsia in South Africa. A qualitative case-study approach was used to examine the policy process, which included a literature review, a policy document review, a timeline of key events and the collection and analysis of 15 interviews with policy makers and academic clinicians The paper concludes that networks of researchers were important not only in using research information to shape policy but also in placing issues on the policy agenda. A policy context that creates a window of opportunity for new research-informed policy development is crucial.
Draft HIV bill's good intentions could backfire
Affiliated Network for Social Accountability Africa: 27 November 2008
AIDS activists in Uganda have slammed a proposed new law that will force HIV-positive people to reveal their status to their sexual partners, and also allow medical personnel to reveal someone's status to their partner. The HIV Prevention and Control Bill (2008) is intended to provide a legal framework for the national response to HIV, as well as protect the rights of individuals affected by HIV. The bill in its current form could worsen the difficulties many HIV-positive people experience. Certain sections of the bill needed to be revised, for instance, the provision that HIV status disclosure would be mandatory for couples planning to marry, which can only have serious repercussions in a male-dominated society; at least three women have been killed by their husbands this year because they were positive.
Health systems and the right to health: an assessment of 194 countries
Backman G, Hunt P, Khosla R, Jaramillo-Strouss C, Fikre BM, Rumble C, Pevalin D, Páez DA, Pineda MA, Frisancho A, Tarco D, Motlagh M, Farcasanu D and Vladescu C: The Lancet, 2008
This paper identifies some of the right-to-health indicators of health systems, such as a comprehensive national health plan, and proposes 72 indicators that reflect some of these features. It collected data on these indicators for 194 countries. Data was not available for 18 indicators for any country, suggesting that organisations that obtain such data give insufficient attention to the right-to-health features of health systems. Where available, the indicators show where health systems need to be improved to better realise the right to health. Although not perfect, the indicators provide a basis for the monitoring of health systems and the progressive realisation of the right to health. The right to health is not just good management or justice, it is an obligation under human-rights law.
HIV is a virus, not a crime: 10 reasons against criminal statutes and criminal prosecutions
Cameron E, Burris S and Clayton M: Journal of the International AIDS Society 11(7), 1 December 2008
The authors provide ten reasons why criminal laws and criminal prosecutions for people transmitting HIV to others are a bad strategy. First, criminalisation is ineffective. Second, what is really needed are measures that really protect those at risk of contracting HIV. Third, criminalisation victimises, oppresses and endangers women. Fourth, criminalisation is often unfairly and selectively enforced. Fifth, criminalisation places blame on one person instead of two. Sixth, these laws are difficult and degrading to apply. Seventh, many of these laws are extremely poorly drafted. Eighth, criminalisation increases stigma. Ninth, criminalisation is a blatant disinducement to testing. And tenth, criminalisation assumes the worst about people with HIV and, in doing so, it punishes vulnerability.
Human rights threatened by anti-HIV laws
Affiliated Network for Social Accountability Africa: 3 December 2008
More than 40 national, regional and international human rights, gender and HIV organisations convened in Cape Town on 27-28 November to discuss trends, implications and realities of HIV criminalisation. Recent global and regional legislative trends indicate a strong call for criminalisation of HIV transmission as one of the measures in response to the growing HIV and Aids pandemics. Whereas supporters of criminalisation reason that it is the only possible response to halt the HIV pandemic, since ‘reckless’ behaviour needs to be ‘criminalised’, opponents of these legislative changes are united in the view that any form of criminalising the transmission of HIV is a gross human rights violation. Moreover, the criminalisation of HIV transmission will further deter people, particularly from vulnerable and marginalised groups, from using HIV testing services.
Progress on human rights requires stronger institutions
Robinson M and Tutu D: e-CIVICUS 419, 10 December 2008
Sixty years ago this week, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first international proclamation of the inherent dignity and equal rights of all people. Yet the Declaration’s enlightened vision of individual freedom, social protection, economic opportunity and duty to community is still unfulfilled. Genocide, torture, domestic violence and discrimination in employment are a daily reality. Above all, poverty is our greatest shame. At least one billion very poor people, 20% of humanity, are daily denied basic rights to adequate food and clean water. As long as gross inequalities between rich and poor persist, it is not possible to claim to be making adequate progress toward fulfilling the ambitions set down 60 years ago. In marking this anniversary, the question raised is how to protect the dignity and equal rights of all.
Rights Not Rescue: A Report on Female, Trans, and Male Sex Workers’ Human Rights in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa
Crago A and Arnott J: Open Society Institute’s Sexual Health and Rights Project and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, 2008
This publication is a situational assessment, carried out between May and June 2008, of the sexual health and rights of sex workers in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, where sex work is illegal. It is based on interviews and focus groups with 87 female, transgender, and male sex workers, as well as 11 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the region that work with sex workers. Sex workers suffer unequal access to health care and social services, lack of access to reproductive health, including HIV prevention and treatment, and discrimination by health workers, police and communities. The report highlights opportunities for NGOs, governments, donors and UN agencies to expand rights-based approaches to sex work that will ultimately improve the health and well-being of sex workers.