In his recent State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama highlighted the need to reduce inequality, widen access to healthcare and education and create jobs in the US. It is unfortunate that his administration’s foreign and trade policies threaten to undermine those very things for billions of people in the developing world. This is particularly so when it comes to trade. For example, in several fora and in a range of ways, the US is pushing agreements and encouraging countries to adopt laws that are much more restrictive than World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, and threaten to dramatically limit the ability of millions of people around the world to access affordable medicines.
Sending South African miners home to die
January 11, 2012 By 3 Comments
Epidemiologist Jonathan Smith is working to complete a documentary called ”They Go to Die,” about the lives of four former mineworkers that were sent home from the mine after contracting TB and HIV in the South African gold mines. The men–like thousands of men each year–are affected by a process known as ‘sending them home to die’ that occurs in the South Africa mining industry, where migrant men who become sick with TB are sent home with little or no continuation of care, follow up, or chemotherapy (despite the fact that medical care is available on the mine premises).
The health news that made the headlines
December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In November came the news that the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria was in a financial crisis, because of declining donor commitments and failure by donors to honor existing commitments. The Fund’s board cancelled Round 11 of its funding applications, which was supposed to provide money for 2011 to 2013.
Helen Zille’s ‘AIDS Gestapo’
December 16, 2011 By 3 Comments
Just as South Africa is recovering from the havoc wrought by former President Thabo Mbeki’s AIDS denialism, now there’s a new politician spouting all sorts of nonsense – this time it’s Helen Zille, the leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance. She’s been active on Twitter and in the media, calling for the criminalization of HIV transmission, and saying the state should not have to pay for treatment for those who contracted HIV through irresponsible behavior. She also recently held a lottery, where people who volunteered to get tested for HIV could win a large cash prize.
Zoo City to be turned into a film
December 7, 2011 By 6 Comments
Zoo City, the award-winning novel by South African Lauren Beukes, is to be turned into a film. Producer Helena Spring, also a South African, won the rights, and will be looking for a director.
Spring’s credits range from the Oscar-nominated “Yesterday” and “Red Dust” (a not so good courtroom drama about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) to the silly, but lucrative, Leon Schuster comedies Mama Jack (he’s in blackface for most of the film) and Mr Bones. Her most recent film is “The First Grader”, which is winning awards all over the place. So she seems to be in good company with Beukes, who earlier this year won the Arthur C Clarke award for Zoo City. The book also won a British Science Fiction Award for best art work – for designer Joey Hi-Fi. It is a great cover – far better in my view than the one on the North American edition.
Zoo City is a ‘cyberpunk thriller’ set in an alternate Johannesburg, where criminals or those who have serious moral failings, get landed with an animal familiar as a permanent attachment. They also get the added benefit of a psychic power. The book’s protagonist is Zinzi December, a former journalist and drug addict, who ended up with a sloth on her back after causing her brother’s death. She spends her time writing copy for 419 scam emails until she gets roped in to searching for a missing singer (her talent is being able to find lost things).
Mobile phones and the new ‘digital divide’
July 12, 2011 By 4 Comments
By Brett Davidson
Mobile phones are often touted as the solution to the digital divide, and the answer to a range of development problems. There is undoubtedly a huge growth in mobile phone access in the developing world, and the possibilities this presents are indeed exciting (innovations in mobile banking and mobile health are just two areas where new services are transforming people’s lives).
But these positive developments should not blind us to a range of problems and concerns (such as research in poor communities showing that expenditure on mobile phone use often comes at the expense of other needs, such as food). Two recent articles highlight the fact that the digital divide is very much still with us, and in fact new kinds of divides may be opening up.
In a paper published by Audience Scapes, Gayatri Murthi acknowledges the unprecedented proliferation of mobile phones in the developing world (the developing world’s share of mobile phone subscriptions increased from 53% in to 73% in 2010; mobile phone subscriptions increased by 16% in the developing world last year, as opposed to 1.6% in the developed world) – but she goes on to show that gender and income disparities mean that by no means everybody is able to reap the benefits of the growth in mobile penetration.
In South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, men are much more likely to have access to cell phones than women. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where the ‘mobile divide’ is slightly smaller than in the other two regions, a woman is 23% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man. Unequal educational opportunities present another divide. For example, 93% of Kenyans with formal education had access to a mobile phone, as opposed to 50% of those without. Since a higher proportion of men than women have access to formal education, this reinforces the gender imbalance.
Furthermore, according to Murthi, women are less likely to receive information via mobile phone, relying more in interpersonal communication. This challenges assumptions that new technologies are in and of themselves, going to democratize the information environment.
A history of the world?
April 6, 2011 By 1 Comment
This is an interesting little video, presented as a history of the world according to Wikipedia. They’re right it is a history, not ‘the history’ Some say it shows how Eurocentric Wikipedia is. Yes, but that in turn just shows all sorts of other things: who has internet access and time to write Wikipedia articles, the Eurocentrism/ West-centrism of much of the history we learn, and so on and so on. Whatever the conclusions, it’s a great exercise in data visualization.–Brett Davidson
Save the Museum (in Uganda)
March 8, 2011 By 3 Comments
Just about this time last year, Uganda lost a priceless part of its cultural heritage when the Kasubi Tombs were burnt down. The tombs were a UNESCO World Heritage Site and were built in 1882 – the burial place of four Buganda kings.
Now it seems another cultural site faces destruction. Global Voices reports on a campaign in Uganda to save the Uganda Museum, founded in 1908.
‘The Worst Place To Be Gay’
March 4, 2011 By 5 Comments
Brett Davidson
In a documentary broadcast recently on the BBC, the British DJ Scott Mills travels to Uganda and reports on the rampant homophobia there. (That’s Mills, above, in a still from the film with Ugandan gay rights activist, Frank Mugisha.) Technically, Uganda may not be the very worst place to be gay. Homosexuality can get you beheaded in Saudi Arabia for example, and there are several other places with similar policies. Nevertheless, Uganda’s pretty bad.
Mills’ film is depressing viewing as he discovers the breadth and depth of rabid homophobia in Ugandan society. Perhaps because he’s a DJ and not a journalist, I found Mills annoying at times, as he tends to focus on himself and his own reactions a bit too much. But at other times his naive and good natured manner is quite endearing.
Deafening Silence
February 8, 2011 By 3 Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofsib2eu02oed
Has there been a deafening silence from African artists and musicians following the murder of gay activist David Kato? This Is Africa seems to think so, and I can find nothing to contradict them. As that blog points out, musicians are usually the first to speak out on behalf of the underdog. But not if you’re lesbian or gay, apparently.
Joining the musicians are some media houses – usually the first to complain when they’re the subject of censorship.
