Aid Activities Research Articles

The People vs the NHS: Biosexual citizenship and hope in stories of PrEP activism.

Discourses of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) revel in its radical potential as a global HIV prevention technology, offering a promise of change for the broader landscape of HIV prevention. In 2018, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) aired The People vs The NHS: Who Gets the Drugs?, a documentary focused on the 'battle' to make PrEP available in England. In this article we explore how the BBC documentary positions PrEP, PrEP biosexual citizen-activists, as well as the wider role of the NHS in HIV prevention and the wellbeing of communities affected by HIV in the UK. We consider how biosexual citizenship (Epstein 2018) is configured through future imaginaries of hope, and the spectral histories of AIDS activism. We describe how The People crafts a story of PrEP activism in the context of an imagined gay community whose past, present, and hopeful future is entangled within the complexities and contractions of a state-funded health system. Here, PrEP functions as a 'happiness pointer' (Ahmed 2011), to orient imagined gay communities towards a hopeful future by demanding and accessing essential medicines and ensuring the absence of needless HIV transmissions. This biomedical success emerges from a shared traumatic past and firmly establishes the salvatory trajectory of PrEP and an imagined gay community who have continued to be affected by HIV. However, campaigns about the individual's right to access PrEP construct the availability and consumption of PrEP as an end goal to their activism, where access to PrEP is understood as an individual's right as a pharmaceutical consumer.

AIDS Activism and Coronavirus Vaccine Challenge Trials.

AIDS Activism and Coronavirus Vaccine Challenge Trials.

Act Up, the heart of French AIDS activism

Based on fieldwork conducted since the early 1990s, Action=Vie: A History of AIDS Activism and Gay Politics in France is an updated, extended translation of the book published in French in 2005, where the sociologist Christophe Broqua sheds light on the interplay between the politics of AIDS and homosexuality in France's leading AIDS activism organisation. Act Up-Paris was founded in 1989 and rose to prominence in the wake of the 1992 “tainted blood scandal”—when it was disclosed that HIV-infected blood had been used for transfusion to haemophiliacs. While initially perceived as modelled on a US-imported form of identity-based activism that “would not work” in France, Act Up-Paris not only became a major player in the field of AIDS activism in France, but has outlived most of its sister Act Ups worldwide.

The Amphibious Nature of AIDS Activism: Medical Professionals and Gay and Lesbian Communities in Norway, 1975–87

This article is the first to explore Norwegian HIV/AIDS policy and activism. Drawing on a range of archival material and oral history interviews, it does this along two lines. First, it analyses how AIDS unfolded in the changing political landscape and health bureaucracy of the 1970s and 1980s. The question is addressed of how AIDS challenged and shaped social medicine, an important ‘thought style’ of the postwar health bureaucracy and an important factor in the creation of the welfare state. Second, the article contributes to a growing AIDS historiography tracing the genealogy of AIDS activism in gay and lesbian health activism in the preceding decades. At the advent of AIDS, formal and informal networks already existed between gay and lesbian communities, activist organisations and the authorities. The roles of gay and lesbian medical professionals and activists are traced, together with how they challenged paternalistic and heteronormative notions of social medicine and homophobic attitudes in the public healthcare system. By having one foot in the medico-political world and one in the queer communities, they were able to mediate and translate different kinds of expertise and knowledge to the authorities, the public and the affected communities. This ‘amphibious’ role gave them credibility with both the authorities and the communities when addressing public health issues and preventive work. However, this story demonstrates that gay AIDS activists were not immune to the reproduction of exclusionary or hierarchical mechanisms within the queer communities. It shows how the juggling of different roles sometimes posed difficult dilemmas for the activists and how challenging but important this amphibiousness was to them.

Larry Kramer: author and founding father of AIDS activism

Credit: Stephen Dunn/Hartford Courant/PA The disease didn’t have a name yet, only a few studies had appeared in peer reviewed journals, but already the gay men of New York City...

Measuring development assistance for health systems strengthening and health security: an analysis using the Creditor Reporting System database.

Background: Health systems strengthening (HSS) and health security are two pillars of universal health coverage (UHC). Investments in these areas are essential for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and are of heightened relevance given the emergence of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This study aims to generate information on development assistance for health (DAH) for these areas, including how to track it and how funding levels align with country needs. Methods: We developed a framework to analyze the amount of DAH disbursed in 2015 for the six building blocks of the health system ('system-wide HSS') plus health security (emergency preparedness, risk management, and response) at both the global (transnational) and country level. We reviewed 2,427 of 32,801 DAH activities in the Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database (80% of the total value of disbursements in 2015) and additional public information sources. Additional aid activities were identified through a keyword search. Results: In 2015, we estimated that US$3.1 billion (13.4%) of the US$22.9 billion of DAH captured in the CRS database was for system-wide HSS and health security: US$2.5 billion (10.9%) for system-wide HSS, mostly for infrastructure, and US$0.6 billion (2.5%) for system-wide health security. US$567.1 million (2.4%) was invested in supporting these activities at the global level. If responses to individual health emergencies are included, 7.5% of total DAH (US$1.7B) was for health security. We found a correlation between DAH for HSS and maternal mortality rates, and we interpret this as evidence that HSS aid generally flowed to countries with greater need. Conclusions : Achieving UHC by 2030 will require greater investments in system-wide HSS and proactive health emergency preparedness. It may be appropriate for donors to more prominently consider country needs and global functions when investing in health security and HSS.

A Girl Activist Inventory

In March 2019, I had the pleasure of giving a talk at Peter Green College at the University of British Columbia that I called “The Politics and Possibilities of Girl-led and Youth-led Arts-based Activism to Address Gender Violence.” I wanted to highlight in particular the activist work of numerous groups of Indigenous girls and young women in a current project and the youth AIDS activist work of the Fire and Hope project in South Africa but I also wanted to place this work in the context of girls’ activism and youth activism more broadly. To do this I started out with a short activity called “Know your Girl Activist” during which I showed PowerPoint photos of some key girl and young women activists of the last few years, and asked the audience if they could identify them. The activists included two Nobel Prize Peace Prize winners, Malala Yousafzai (2014) and Nadia Murad (2018) along with Autumn Pelletier, the young Indigenous woman from Northern Ontario, Canada, well known for her work on water activism, and, of course, Greta Thunberg, now a household name but then, in 2019, already well known for her work on climate change activism. To my surprise only some of these activists were recognized, so, during the Q and A session, when I was asked if there is a history of girls as activists I could see that this question indicated clearly the urgent need for this special issue of Girlhood Studies which was only just in process then. Now, thanks to the dedication of the two guest editors of this special issue, Catherine Vanner and Anuradha Dugal and the wide range of superb contributors, I can point confidently to girls’ activism as a burgeoning area of study in contemporary feminism rooted in feminist history.

International Student Flows from Developing Countries: Do Donors Have an Impact?

International student flows from emerging and developing countries have grown tremendously over the last decades. In this paper, we address the question of whether donors, who might care about the potential brain drain effects student emigration entails in the countries of origin, can affect the student outflows through their foreign aid activities. Employing standard gravity-type approaches of international migration, we separately analyse the impact of scholarships for students from developing countries, and of development projects in recipient countries aimed at improving the local quality of tertiary education. We find that these two types of post-secondary aid lead to opposite effects on student mobility. Investing in the quality of tertiary education in recipient countries appears to be associated with lower outflows of tertiary educated students to donor countries, which corroborates previous research showing that aid may reduce emigration from developing countries if it improves public services. The provision of in-donor scholarships obviously raises student mobility for the duration of the university education abroad, but our results suggest that the student inflows also translate into permanent immigration of highly educated people.

Is Foreign Aid Making A Difference? A Case Study of Sagarmatha National Park Forestry Project, Khumbu, Nepal

This paper describes a community stakeholder approach to evaluating the effectiveness of foreign aid and NGO involvement in an impacted community. The focus of the study, the Sagarmatha National Park Forestry Project (SNPFP), has operated in the Khumbu region for more than thirty years. The success of foreign aid and NGO activities was assessed by interviewing key informants with regard to their experience and perceptions concerning the project. The implications of this study include the recommendation that local people are the best source of information to measure foreign aid and NGO performance in a remote community. Furthermore, the future of natural resource conservation and rural development led by foreign aid depends on collaboration between the local people, NGOs and government.

From care to social assistance – transformation in a municipality of the province of Lublin. On the thirtieth anniversary of ‘I implore and recommend’ by the Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki .

Aid activities in Poland have a long history. Over the centuries, it took various forms and evolved from mutual assistance, philanthropy, and charity to organized, purposeful activities. Memories of my experience of working in institutional care and then of social welfare concern the period of the turn of the Polish People's Republic and the Third Polish Republic. The systemic changes initiated at that time were of fundamental importance in the development and professionalization of Polish social welfare. I belong to a group of social workers who started work in the 1960s. Therefore, I am an eyewitness and participant in the changes that took place on the "first line" of social welfare in one of the Polish municipalities in which I worked in those years. I tried to explain the reality of social workers in this period. In my memories I recall some events that may seem insignificant in the scale of general changes but reflect the atmosphere of those times. I trust that they will supplement the knowledge about the history of social welfare of this period.

The agency of faith-based NGOs in Turkish humanitarian aid policy and practice

ABSTRACT While Turkish faith-based NGOs have been involved in delivering humanitarian aid for two decades, the relations of these organizations with the state have not received adequate scholarly attention. The main purpose of this article is to address this gap by asking what roles NGOs play in Turkey's humanitarian aid policy and practice. Despite the relative isolation of Turkey's administrative structure as a result of a strong state tradition, this paper shows that NGOs attempt to play political roles in Turkish foreign policy. The study relies on an analytical framework derived from constructivism to examine the agenda-setting and information-providing activities of Turkish NGOs between 2004 and 2016. Based on findings from a series of semi-structured interviews with 25 respondents from nine different NGOs and three state institutions, this artilce expands the research agenda on Turkey's foreign aid and shows that NGOs function as knowledge-providers, powerful catalysts for humanitarian aid activities, and influential voices in bringing humanitarian issues to light.

Advances on the Bioactivities, Total Synthesis, Structural Modification, and Structure-Activity Relationships of Cytisine Derivatives.

Cytisine is a quinolizidine alkaloid isolated from various Leguminosae plants. Cytisine and its derivatives exhibit a broad range of biological properties, such as smoking cessation aid, antidepressant, neuroprotective, nootropic, anticancer, antiviral, antiparasitic, antidiabetic, insecticidal, and nematicidal activities. In this review, the progress of cytisine and its derivatives in regard to bioactivities, total synthesis, structural modifications focusing on their N-12 position and lactam ring is reported. Additionally, the structure-activity relationships of cytisine and its derivatives are also discussed.

Competences of preschool children in the provision of first aid - results of a pilot study

Teaching basic first aid activities is one of the most important area of children`s health education. The aim of the study was to analyse the educational effects of the pilot implementation of the author's curriculum in the provision of premedical first aid for preschool children. The knowledge and skills of pre-schoolers in the provision of first aid were analysed. The research was carried out in a private kindergarten in Warsaw. As a result, the knowledge and skills of preschool children about the principles of providing first aid was insufficient. After conducting the educational program, the level of knowledge and skills of children in this area increased significantly. Educational programs introduced as early as possible, already at the stage of preschool education, can contribute to greater awareness of health-related attitudes, may affect the skills of recognizing, responding to and providing basic rescue operations, and may influence the attention to the important role of health education.

Shoe: Towards a promiscuous politics of emergency evacuation mobility

The paper works against the articulation of emergency politics within an Agambenian framework of a ‘state of exception’ which has heretofore dominated writing about emergencies. Instead it develops a more hopeful albeit agonistic politics of emergency evacuation mobilities. By way of Elaine Scarry, Bonnie Honig, Ben Anderson and the writings of gay rights and AIDS activist Douglas Crimp, the paper explores the promise of a ‘politics of promiscuity’, alighting on the role of shoes in emergency evacuation mobilities in two cases. Through detailed analysis of the evacuation of the World Trade Centre during 9/11, and the debacle of the evacuation of Australian PM Julia Gillard during ‘Australia Day’ protests in 2012, the paper teases out the concept of promiscuity through feminist and queer reworkings of emergency politics.

Remembering George W. Smith’s “Life Work”: From Politico-Administrative Regimes to Living Otherwise

This article revisits activist ethnographer George W. Smith’s intellectual and political legacy, with a focus on his engagement with and conception of “life work.” In the context of the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Smith contributed to reframing the way in which AIDS was problematized and confronted. Rather than treating people living with HIV/AIDS as “disease vectors” to be isolated from the general population, as had been the case under the prevailing public health regime, he started his research and organizing from the standpoint of people living with HIV/AIDS – investigating the everyday work that they did in accessing the services that they needed in order to survive. Drawing from archival research, activist interviews and his published works, this article traces how Smith deployed the concept of life work in his research as part of the “Hooking Up” Project, in his public writing in the gay and lesbian press, and in his organizing with AIDS ACTION NOW! in Toronto. Beyond the reproductive labour of individuals in accessing particular politico-administrative regimes, which Smith focused on in his research, we explore how life work can be theorized more broadly to include collective efforts to confront social, biomedical and institutional barriers to living. Hence, in considering Smith’s AIDS activism, we argue that his theorizing and political organizing, taken together, should themselves be seen as forms of life work.

Fostering a healthy public for men and HIV: a case study of the Movement for Change and Social Justice (MCSJ)

This paper examines the recently formed Movement for Change and Social Justice (MCSJ) in the township of Gugulethu, in Cape Town, South Africa. MCSJ is a health and social justice movement that has an unusual trajectory—guided by the political principles and strategies of South Africa AIDS activism, inspired but also frustrated by the contemporary progressive public health activism, and catalysed by a university research partnership at the University of Cape Town (UCT) that focused on innovative ways of using health information to spur community and health system action to respond to issues of men, masculinity and HIV.This paper synthesises findings from participant observation, qualitative process evaluations of MCSJ’s work, and reflections from the UCT-based research team to develop a number of lessons about the challenges and opportunities in efforts to foster a healthy public for men and HIV. MCSJ’s approach builds on current modes and models of public health thinking while also pushing for more responsive, more inclusive, more sustained, and more locally rooted forms of practice. The paper identifies a range of enabling conditions for MCSJ’s work, describes the often delicate balancing act MCSJ has to manage in its work, and outlines some of the key strategies of this community–university partnerships that guided efforts to develop a healthy public for men and HIV. Lessons learned from this case study will be helpful for other efforts to promote and sustain engaged and impactful university–community collaborations to support the emergence of healthy publics.

Estimates of aid for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health: findings from application of the Muskoka2 method, 2002–17

SummaryBackgroundFour methods have previously been used to track aid for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH). At a meeting of donors and stakeholders in May, 2018, a single, agreed method was requested to produce accurate, predictable, transparent, and up-to-date estimates that could be used for analyses from both donor and recipient perspectives. Muskoka2 was developed to meet these needs. We describe Muskoka2 and present estimates of levels and trends in aid for RMNCH in 2002–17, with a focus on the latest estimates for 2017.MethodsMuskoka2 is an automated algorithm that generates disaggregated estimates of aid for reproductive health, maternal and newborn health, and child health at the global, donor, and recipient-country levels. We applied Muskoka2 to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Creditor Reporting System (CRS) aid activities database to generate estimates of RMNCH disbursements in 2002–17. The percentage of disbursements that benefit RMNCH was determined using CRS purpose codes for all donors except Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the UN Population Fund; and UNICEF; for which fixed percentages of aid were considered to benefit RMNCH. We analysed funding by donor for the 20 largest donors, by recipient-country income group, and by recipient for the 16 countries with the greatest RMNCH need, defined as the countries with the worst levels in 2015 on each of seven health indicators.FindingsAfter 3 years of stagnation, reported aid for RMNCH reached $15·9 billion in 2017, the highest amount ever reported. Among donors reporting in both 2016 and 2017, aid increased by 10% ($1·4 billion) to $15·4 billion between 2016 and 2017. Child health received almost half of RMNCH disbursements in 2017 (46%, $7·4 billion), followed by reproductive health (34%, $5·4 billion), and maternal and newborn health (19%, $3·1 billion). The USA ($5·8 billion) and the UK ($1·6 billion) were the largest bilateral donors, disbursing 46% of all RMNCH funding in 2017 (including shares of their core contributions to multilaterals). The Global Fund and Gavi were the largest multilateral donors, disbursing $1·7 billion and $1·5 billion, respectively, for RMNCH from their core budgets. The proportion of aid for RMNCH received by low-income countries increased from 31% in 2002 to 52% in 2017. Nigeria received 7% ($1·1 billion) of all aid for RMNCH in 2017, followed by Ethiopia (6%, $876 million), Kenya (5%, $754 million), and Tanzania (5%, $751 million).InterpretationMuskoka2 retains the speed, transparency, and donor buy-in of the G8's previous Muskoka approach and incorporates eight innovations to improve precision. Although aid for RMNCH increased in 2017, low-income and middle-income countries still experience substantial funding gaps and threats to future funding. Maternal and newborn health receives considerably less funding than reproductive health or child health, which is a persistent issue requiring urgent attention.FundingBill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health.

Transnationalizing the ‘Moral neoliberal’? Private aid initiatives in Cambodia

ABSTRACTWithin South East Asia, informal, non-state development actors have become more prominent. The case of small-scale, private aid activities in Cambodia offers the opportunity to reflect on how state frameworks and interventions matter for such projects. Typically, theories of how a state encourages its citizens’ pro-social behaviour while retracting is own commitments, view this within a single nation state. Citizen aid in Cambodia, however, is often characterised by collaborations between national and international peers, and relies, to some extent, on resource flows along those networks. It encourages us to think through such approaches transnationally. This means broadening the analytical framework of the ‘moral neoliberal' (Muehlebach 2012, The Moral Neoliberal: Welfare and Citizenship in Italy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press) to account for the fact that activities of thus-responsibilised citizens expand beyond the confines of their nation state. In the Cambodian case, a lack of public service provision, combined with a hitherto loosely regulated third sector, have created conditions where such initiatives have proliferated. The case of private aid thus challenges the scope of ‘moral neoliberal', as conceived within the framework of a nation state, as it leaves out of sight those ‘ethical citizens’ who are active transnationally.

ПРОБЛЕМЫ ОСНАЩЕНИЯ ДЛЯ ОКАЗАНИЯ ПЕРВОЙ ПОМОЩИ: ОРГАНИЗАЦИОННО-ПРАВОВОЙ АСПЕКТ

The article examines organizational and legal problems related to state registration, production, procurement and use of medical devices for first aid. The study significance is accounted for by the need to find solutions to problems related to equipping first aid activities with medical devices, which is becoming extremely important for the modern Russian society. Moreover, a comprehensive study of these issues has not been undertaken so far. The purpose of the study is to develop a set of proposals of an organizational and legal nature to improve quality of medical devices for first aid and equipping all potential participants of first aid delivery with such devices. To eliminate the problem of low equipment of potential participants of first aid delivery with the means of delivery, the composition of first-aid kits, packs, sets, and packages for all categories of participants have to be approval by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. The authors also propose organizational and legal measures to improve interdepartmental and intradepartmental cooperation in this direction with the Russian Ministry of Health playing the coordinating role. The authors have also identified the need for improving the procedure for state registration of the production of first aid devices either though amending the Federal Law "On the Basics of Public Health Protection in the Russian Federation" regarding the provision that first-aid kits, packs, sets, and packages equipped with medical devices registered in the prescribed manner are not subject to state registration. As an alternative, the authors propose amendments and additions to the Rules of the state registration of medical devices, providing for a simplified state registration of first-aid kits, packs, sets, and packages. In addition, the authors name arguments in favor of improving the clinical trial procedure for first aid medical devices and propose changes to Article 38 of the Federal Law “On the Basics of Public Health Protection in the Russian Federation” in terms of eliminating the problems of legal techniques in the definition of the term “medical device” regarding first aid. Keywords: First aid; first aid kits; first aid equipment; medical devices.

Ms. Blakk for President by Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney

Reviewed by: Ms. Blakk for President by Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney David Román MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT. By Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney. Directed by Tina Landau. Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago. June 15, 2019. Ms. Blakk for President recuperates the forgotten life of Joan Jett Blakk and the communities from which this legendary Chicago drag queen emerged and thrived before their dramatic 1992 presidential run. A partnership between Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney—Steppenwolf ensemble members and longtime collaborators (Wig Out, The Brothers Size, Head of Passes)—the play focusses on Terence Alan Smith, the working-class black gay man who becomes Joan when in drag, but it also reaches further into the political culture of Chicago’s dynamic queer community. The play tells the story of Chicago’s Queer Nation and the city’s early 1990s queer club scene, of AIDS activism and drag culture, of intergenerational black queer kinship and multicultural political alliances. It is about all these things and more. Ms. Blakk for President is also much more than a play. The entire space outside Steppenwolf’s Upstairs Theatre where the play was performed offered an explosively visual scene that transported audiences back into the 1990s. The lobby was transformed into a repository of Queer Nation memorabilia—posters, stickers, photographs—that allowed audience members of all backgrounds and generations to immerse themselves in the period’s radical aesthetics and [End Page 350] Click for larger view View full resolution Tarell Alvin McCraney in Steppenwolf’s world premiere of Ms. Blakk for President by Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney. (Photo: Michael Brosilow.) [End Page 351] Click for larger view View full resolution Tarell Alvin McCraney and Patrick Andrews in Steppenwolf’s world premiere of Ms. Blakk for President by Tina Landau and Tarell Alvin McCraney. (Photo: Michael Brosilow.) politics. This colorful visual splash of history also set the tone for the evening, one that was festive yet reflective, celebratory yet mindful, at once a party and an homage. The walls—including those by the bathrooms, box office, and concession stands—were covered with pop art–inspired neon posters and stickers promoting Joan Jett Blakk for president and invoking the queer activist politics of the era. The accumulation of vibrant images and slogans spoke out against the assimilationist impulses among gay people and the rigidity of the gay/straight binary. One wall of hot pink posters announced “Joan Jett Blakk for President! I Want You Honey! Lick Bush in ’92, Queer Nation Party,” replacing Uncle Sam with a fabulously cartoonish image of Blakk pointing their finger. This intense, politically defiant energy of the lobby permeated the performance space, which was transformed into a queer nightclub. As audiences entered the theatre, the party was already thoroughly underway. Dancers gyrated throughout the theatre and the pulsing beat of club music was inescapable. Raked seating was positioned on either side of a runway platform that was the main stage of action. Cabaret table seating was also available on the main floor. David Zinn’s beautifully evocative scenic design was a visual archive of queer and activist cultures, and the sense of belonging and urgency of these communities was movingly embodied by a generation of younger actors who brought this lost history to life. The dancers, it turned out, were the actual cast and unbeknown to us, were already in character, at least partially. Each of the actors in the ensemble played multiple roles, but this first encounter at the club seemed as if the actors were very closely aligned with who they were outside of the theatre. One actor, in fact, Molly Brennan, the only woman in the cast, uneventfully walked into the theatre from the lobby during the dance prologue, nearly unseen by the audience, to write the name of someone who had died of HIV/ AIDS on one of the dozens of stars drawn on two sides of the space’s walls. Performing this ritual every night of the run, she selected the name from a list submitted earlier by the audience (one of the many interactive projects available in the lobby) to build an unassuming tribute to the dead. Brennan’s AIDS memorial...