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The 13th Southern African Civil Society Forum was held from 14-17 August 2017 at Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre Johannesburg, organised by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Council of Non government organisations (CNGO), Southern African Trade Union Co-ordinating Council (SATUCC) and Federation of Churches in Southern Africa (FOCISA). It involved about 300 delegates from different constituencies and civil society organisations across the SADC region. A commission session was convened by EQUINET and SATUCC within the 13th Southern African Civil Society Forum to share information on the findings and proposals for harmonised regional standards on health in the extractive sector. The session objectives were to discuss the key issues and formulate concrete strategies for responding to the regional context and priority challenges for protection of health in the extractive sector in the region and to make proposals for harmonised regional standards to protect health in the sector. Delegates recommended that health be included in the SADC harmonised standards for the mining sector, with a comprehensive focus on public health and environment, with details of what this means and actions proposed at national, regional and local level.

The Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), is an EQUINET cluster lead for the theme work on the right to health. CEHURD, Mubangizi Michael and Musimenta Jennifer Vs the Executive Director of Mulago National Referral Hospital and Attorney General of Uganda (Civil Suit No 212 of 2013), “Mulago case” and Justice Lydia Mugambe’s judgement won the Gender Justice Uncovered Awards in May 2017 hosted by Women’s Link Worldwide. In this landmark ruling Justice Lydia Mugambe noted that the disappearance of the couple's baby also resulted to psychological torture for the parents as well as putting the spotlight on the State's failure to fulfil its obligations under the right to health. The Court also pointed to the overburdened hospital staff which led to errors as another example of the failure of the State to comply with its obligations. The judgment won with 3,829 votes beating 17 other rulings that were nominated for the best judicial decision from all around the world in the Gender Justice Uncovered Awards under the People's Choice Gavel 2017 category. This award comes at a time when CEHURD is implementing the judgment through discussions and support to Mulago National Referral Hospital to develop and put in place mechanisms to ensure the safety of babies after delivery.

In 2017 EQUINET (through TARSC working with Maldaba a web design company) is developing a web platform for participatory action research (PAR) that would allow us to connect across countries on areas of local community level work and action on areas of health, health determinants and health systems that have wider regional and global relevance or relate to global policies being applied across our countries. In doing this we are building a new tool that will allow us to share, discuss, analyse and design actions across countries in the same way we have done so using PAR at local level, that we can use in future for many purposes. TARSC has opened a call for people with experience of PAR working in east and southern Africa who may be interested in being involved in this process. We will be taking forward the web platform for PAR between July 2017 and December 2019 working with eight sites and health workers and community members in a primary care facility in the site. We will be exploring how disease programme or funding targets such as for performance based financing are affecting health workers professionals roles and team work; health workers relationships with communities and the ability to deliver comprehensive primary health care. We invite people to apply to join the programme as country PAR facilitators. To participate in this programme we invite people who work in an organisation/ programme in a country in an east and southern African country; have had some exposure to PAR approaches; have access to internet; have ongoing work or interaction with at least one primary care centre and with the health workers and community members in it, such as through health centre committees, health literacy or other programmes; have primary care level services that are implementing some form of target driven funding or service delivery, such as in performance based financing or specific disease programmes, and are available for the activities, in the time frames and for the duration noted in the process above. If you are interested please email EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org by July 7th 2017 with your name, organisation, country and email address for communication, and: (1) list of any prior training received on PAR, with the course, institution providing the course and year; (2) A list of any PAR work you have implemented, with a line for each on what it was about and the year; (3) Confirmation that you have direct access to internet and what it costs you for a one hour session (if provided institutionally through your organisation please indicate this). (4) The name, location and urban/ rural location of a primary care centre that you regularly interact with, including with the health workers and community members, and whether the health workers and / or community members at this centre have access to the internet (not essential but useful). (5) The form of target driven funding or service delivery being implemented at the primary care service, (ie. performance based financing or specific disease programmes specify for what) and (6) Confirmation that you are available for the activities, in the time frames and for the duration noted in the process above. We will provide feedback to applicants who provide the full information above by last week of July.

This 2017 session within the Regional ECSA HC Best Practices Forum was convened by ECSA HC and EQUINET in line with HMC Resolution – ECSAHMC50/R2 and with proposals from the 2016 Regional meeting on GHD. The objectives of the meeting were to a. To share information on progress in the ECSA HC GHD programme and issues for policy dialogue and follow up work b. To present and discuss evidence supporting and proposals for harmonised regional standards on health in the extractive sector c. To review and discuss positions on selected agenda items in the 2017 World Health Assembly (WHA) agenda The meeting recommendations were further summarised and reviewed in the Best Practices Forum and then in the Directors Joint Consultative conference, where the outcome of what was formally recommended is separately reported by ECSA HC. Delegates were provided with specific background materials through distributed publications. The report is organised by theme, with the presentation and group discussions on each area shown together.