Sociology

Poverty and gender inequality, in addition to the lack of access to education, increase vulnerability to HIV infection. This is one of the main messages of the Gender Equality, HIV and Education booklet recently produced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The Consortium for Health Policy and Systems Analysis in Africa (CHEPSAA) project is aimed at building the field of health policy and systems research and analysis (HPSA) in Africa. Specifically, CHEPSAA aims to increase sustainable African capacity to produce and use high quality health policy and systems analysis HPSA. These objectives will be met through the activities of 5 Work Packages (WP), the first of which is an HPSA capacity needs assessment. The needs assessment assumes that to build the field, we first need to strengthen the CHEPSAA partner institutions. It was undertaken in 2 phases:

·       County context mapping by country partners was undertaken from April-May 2011

With over 120 maps, charts and tables, the UNESCO World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education enables readers to visualize the educational pathways of girls and boys in terms of access, participation and progression from pre-primary to tertiary education.

The Atlas features a wide range of sex-disaggregated data and gender indicators from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. It also illustrates the extent to which gender disparities in education have changed since 1970 and are shaped by factors such as national wealth, geographic location, investment in education and fields of study.

The SAHR 2011 provides valuable policy and empirical information on a range of issues that are related to and impact on the Negotiated Service Delivery Agreement and primary health care re-engineering as envisaged by the National Department of Health (NDoH). A range of experts provide commentary on topics ranging from rural health, health technology to human resources. SAHR 2011 also contains a section on core health issues, where developments in health information systems, financing health care, and health legislation and policy are discussed. The Review concludes with the Indicators chapter which presents a selection of the best available data on the functioning and performance of the health system.

This 21st annual World Report summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It reflects extensive investigative work undertaken in 2010 by Human Rights Watch staff, usually in close partnership with domestic human rights activists.

Many of the world’s women are moving closer to gender equality, but substantial gaps remain between men and women in health, education and, particularly, political and economic participation in a number of countries, including some of the most developed, according to a new global report.

Measuring against 2010 rankings, for example, the Sixth Annual World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2011 found that New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom showed slight declines in their overall gender equality rankings, while Brazil, Ethiopia, Qatar, Tanzania and Turkey posted gains.

Overview

The WHO Mental Health Atlas 2011 represents the latest estimate of global mental health resources available to prevent and treat mental disorders and help protect the human rights of people living with these conditions.

It presents data from 184 WHO Member States, covering 98% of the world’s population. Facts and figures presented in Atlas indicate that resources for mental health remain inadequate.

The distribution of resources across regions and income groups is substantially uneven and in many countries resources are extremely scarce. Results from Atlas reinforce the urgent need to scale up resources and care for mental health within countries.

Foreword

On behalf of the board and secretariat of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), we are pleased tointroduce this 2011 report, Analysing Commitments to Advance the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health.

This report seeks to further our collective understanding of the current Global Strategy commitments, facilitating more effective advocacy to advance the Every Woman, Every Child effort, as well as greater accountability in line with the recommendations of the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health.