Category Archives: Uncategorized

Call for consultants: Digital health and rights research

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We’re looking for a consultant! To support the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, the Global Health Centre will provide high-level research and technical assistance in drafting a research report on Digital Innovation, Technology and the Right to Health, and will also support the Special Rapporteur’s consultation with a broad range of stakeholders.

Interested? More details below, including how to apply by the deadline of 30 June 2022.

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The silence at AIDS 2020 Virtual

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Reprinted from Harvard Health and Human Rights Journal.

For decades, the International AIDS Conference has successfully convened a massive biannual meeting, bringing together a diverse community of scientists, researchers, activists and officials, as well as a smattering of celebrities. At a turning point with a battered global strategy and the devastation caused by a second global pandemic, COVID-19, the global AIDS movement has never been in more urgent need of such frank and diverse conversations. Sadly, the conference which launched online this week has never been more divided: while scientists and UN officials gather in the official meeting, AIDS 2020 Virtual, community activists have broken away to hold a parallel conference, HIV 2020.

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Health aid accountability and the politics of data

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Screenshot 2020-07-16 at 17.37.54This webinar was organized on June 26, 2020 by the Kampala Initiative: Challenging Realities of “Aid”. Speakers included Dr. John Waters (Caribbean Vulnerable Communities) and Hayden Barthelmy (GrenCHAP), civil society activists from the Caribbean who successfully conducted an HIV study in partnership with communities and researchers; Dr. Carolyn Gomes, winner of the UN Human Rights Prize and Alternate Board Member representing Developing Countries NGO Delegation on the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria; and Sara (Meg) Davis.

Click here for the slides and here for the recording.

Right On 4: Who will be left uncounted in data on COVID-19?

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How are inequality and discrimination shaping data about COVID-19, and who is being left invisible and uncounted? On the launch of her new book on data and human rights, Sara (Meg) Davis speaks to social worker and rights activist Jolovan Wham in Singapore, who describes how thousands of migrant workers are being detained in overcrowded dorms, and were missed by the official mobile contact tracing app. In Geneva, Dr. Shirin Heidari (GENDRO) and Marina Smelyanskaya (Stop TB Partnership) address the global need for feminist principles and respect for human rights to gather data on COVID-19. Davis’ new book, The Uncounted: Politics of Data in Global Health is available from Cambridge University Press.

The Uncounted book is out

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Fig. 8.1 CVC site visit

Photo courtesy of Estandar Video y Media

The Uncounted: Politics of Data in Global Health publishes today with Cambridge University Press. It’s been a long journey to get here, and you can read the first chapter here. For a 20% discount, type in DAVIS2020 at checkout. A more affordable paperback will be out later this year.

 

Right On Podcast 3: About the speakers

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We meet four inspiring women in Right On Podcast 3: Is violence against women (including trans women) on the rise? — speaking to you from Kenya to Bangkok to New York City. Here’s a bit more about them and their work. The conversation was hosted by Meg Davis in Geneva. Continue reading →

Is civic space closing in global health?

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With restrictions in many countries on nongovernmental organizations, and sweeping new laws coming into play in response to COVID-19, is space closing for civil society, journalists and other whistleblowers in global health? Leading international activists and journalists debated this question from national and international perspectives, on 19 May 2020, as part of the Graduate Institute’s 73rd World Health Assembly week. Co-organised by the Global Health Centre, STOPAIDS and Medicus Mundi International.

SPEAKERS

  • Gargeya Telakapalli, Research Associate, People’s Health Movement
  • Mercy Korir, Medical Doctor; Journalist, KTN News, Kenya
  • Mike Podmore, Executive Director, STOPAIDS; Chair, Action for Global Health
  • Nadejda Dermendjieva, Executive Director, Bulgarian Fund for Women
  • Thomas Schwarz, Executive Secretary, Medicus Mundi International
  • Moderated by Meg Davis, Special Advisor, Strategy and Partnerships, Global Health Centre

Right On Podcast, Episode 2: Can we police our way out of the pandemic?

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Episode 2 of the Right On Podcast: Human Rights Activists Respond to COVID-19 explores criminalization and policing. Many countries are now seeing the most significant deployment of law enforcement and national defense forces since World War II. Should they be arresting people who refuse to follow lockdown regulations? Or will aggressive policing, abuse and criminalization only undermine trust and fuel the virus? Should we also be considering the labor rights of frontline police officers? Can human rights offer us a way forward out of this crisis?

No easy answers, but it was a real delight to explore these questions with three inspiring activists who are also friends: Edwin J. Bernard (HIV Justice Network), Felicita Hikuam (AIDS and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa), and Mikhail Golichenko, a Russian lawyer. Actually, Patrick Eba suggested, on the first episode, that we talk to the HIV Justice Network, and it was a great suggestion. The second episode is now being edited and will air Friday, May 15, 2020 on Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, and Stitcher. Continue reading →

Webinar: Human rights in the COVID-19 response

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Public Webinar Series on the Coronavirus

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As countries scramble to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is seeing a massive roll-out of lockdowns, quarantines, and military and police deployments unlike anything we have experienced before. What does this mean for human rights – especially for people who were already marginalised and struggling to survive? Will populist and authoritarian rulers use the crisis as an excuse to expand surveillance, shutting down criticism in ways that threaten privacy, autonomy and accountability? A panel of leading experts on human rights from China, Kenya, the World Health Organization and UNAIDS explore these questions, and how the UN and civil society are responding to them.

SPEAKERS

  • Allan Maleche, Founding Executive Director of Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS
  • Shen Tingting, HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Advocate
  • Emily Christie, Senior Advisor on Human Rights and Law, UNAIDS
  • Rajat Khosla, Human Rights Advisor, Department of Reproductive Health Research, WHO
  • Moderated by Meg Davis, Special Advisor, Strategy and Partnerships, Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute, Geneva