Jun 2015 – Jun 2015 We provided support to the communications work for this important conference which offered new insights into why women are on the move, their relationships with home communities, and gendered occupations. It was held in Singapore at the Asia Research Institute and organised by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme […]
The ReBUILD Consortium was formed in 2011 and is a Research Programme Consortium funded by the UK Department for International Development. Partners in the UK, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Cambodia and Zimbabwe have come together to explore different approaches to health system development in countries that have been affected by political and social conflict. Decisions made […]
This assignment was to work with various staff members from the Institute of Development Studies and their partners in exploring the impact of their work on global policy. Along with Hazel Reeves, I facilitated a meeting to draw out lessons from case studies and synthesised these into a report for Sida on strategies for improving policy and practice and reflective learning.
The first few years of life are crucial to outcomes later (whether it’s in health, wellbeing, or social and economic position) that this is an area that deserves attention. We were contracted by Oxford Policy Management to work on this ongoing project which also includes icddr,b in Bangladesh. This included supporting a stakeholder mapping process […]
This conference was a chance to draw on insights from the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment programme to look back at what has been achieved since the Beijing 4th World Women’s Conference in 1995 and forward to the post-2015 agenda. I was contracted to write the meeting report which contains insights for researchers, advocates, practitioners, and […]
A new way to prevent HIV, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), can provide protection where condoms are not used. Integrating it into HIV and sexual health programming for various communities has become a focus of researchers and health and development agencies. However, PrEP raises important challenges in the context of female sex work. To protect sexual and reproductive health and avoid pregnancy, PrEP must be used with condoms but that may be difficult where clients perceive PrEP as an alternative. Frequent HIV testing and medicalisation of HIV prevention in low-income settings presents challenges for those who lack the rights and power needed to make informed health-related decisions. Policymakers and HIV agencies have a short window in which to ensure that PrEP complements existing programming and plan ways to avert potential negative impacts.
May 2015 – May 2015 PERFORM researched human resources for health in Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania. Through action research they provide new knowledge on how district managers can effectively intervene within their current constraints to improve the performance of their staff. We supported the PERFORM team by providing capacity development on how to write policy […]
This editorial discusses a collection of papers examining gender across a range of health policy and systems contexts, from access to services, governance, health financing, and human resources for health. The papers interrogate differing health issues and core health systems functions using a gender lens. Together they produce new knowledge on the multiple impacts of gender on health experiences and demonstrate the importance of gender analyses and gender sensitive interventions for promoting well-being and health systems strengthening. The findings from these papers collectively show how gender intersects with other axes of inequity within specific contexts to shape experiences of health and health seeking within households, communities and health systems; illustrate how gender power relations affect access to important resources; and demonstrate that gender norms, poverty and patriarchy interplay to limit women’s choices and chances both within household interactions and within the health sector. Health systems researchers have a responsibility to promote the incorporation of gender analyses into their studies in order to inform more strategic, effective and equitable health systems interventions, programmes, and policies. Responding to gender inequitable systems, institutions, and services in this sector requires an ‘all hands-on deck’ approach. We cannot claim to take a ‘people-centred approach’ to health systems if the status quo continues.
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect the poorest of the poor. NTD programmes can and should rise to the challenge of playing a part in promoting more gender equitable societies. Gender equity shapes poverty and the experience of disease in multiple ways; yet to date, there has been little attention paid to gender equity in NTD control efforts. Drawing on a synthesis of relevant literature, the tacit knowledge and experience of the authors, and discussions at a meeting on women, girls and NTDs, this analysis paper distills five key lessons from over 20 years of gender mainstreaming in health. The paper links this learning to NTDs and Mass Drug Administration (MDA). Our first lesson is that tailored gender frameworks support gender analysis within research and programming. We present a gender review framework focusing on different MDA strategies. Second, gender interplays with other axes of inequality, such as disability and geographical location; hence, intersectionality is important for inclusive and responsive NTD programmes. Third, gender, power and positionality shape who is chosen as community drug distributors (CDDs). How CDDs interact with communities and how this interface role is valued and practised needs to be better understood. Fourth, we need to unpack the gender and power dynamics at household level to assess how this impacts MDA coverage and interactions with CDDs. Finally, we need to collect and use sex disaggregated data to support the development of more equitable and sustainable NTD programmes.
Equity is at the core of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 3: ‘ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’. Improving health requires accelerated efforts to address inequity, in particular, among marginalised populations who are most affected by the burden of disease. Increasingly, the importance of gender equity within global health leadership is being recognised, and SDG 5: ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ is supported by a target on ensuring women’s equal opportunities for leadership. In many countries, more than 75% of people engaged and working in global health are women, but this proportion of women is not reflected at the top levels of leadership. Governance is a core pillar of health systems and greater parity and gender responsive, transformative leadership are essential in our efforts to strengthen health systems and meet the gender- and health-related SDGs Gender bias is apparent in personal, political, economic and public life. The health sector is no exception. Empirical research by Women in Global Health (WGH) and the Research in Gender and Ethics (RinGs) consortium draws on three data sources to explore the ways in which gender affects progression and leadership in global health at many levels. Researchers present a radical new agenda for change aimed at strengthening health systems, and making them more equitable and responsive.