Health Cards (25)
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Colleagues,
I've been struck not only about the degree of interest
in health cards, but also by how few Africans have been
participating in the debate. I haven't been keeping count, but
my sense is that Merrick Zwarenstein (with apologies for the
spelling) is the only active African participant; and that,
other than him, Africans have contributed no more than one or
two of the 24-25 entries. This seems to be a debate among
North Americans and Europeans about Africa, with Africans
pretty much on the sidelines.
My impression is that much the same could be said for
the Afro-net activity as a whole. Again, I haven't been
keeping count; but an awfully high proportion of the activity
seems to be North Americans or Europeans either 1) seeking
African contributions to projects they are entrepreneuring or
2) announcing courses or meetings they have organized for the
benefit of Africans.
I'd like to suggest that the Afro-net organizers
systematically monitor Afro-net traffic from this perspective,
and let us know what they find out about the geographic
location/background of contributors after two or three months.
A useful breakdown might be contributions: a) from outside
Africa; b) from representatives of international agencies
posted in Africa; c) from Africans working in African
institutions.
If such a review confirms my sense that a very small
percentage of the total contributions is from group c), then I
think we should all be seriously concerned. It would suggest a
certain degree of validity on the part of those who see the
internet as a "neocolonialist tool" serving to increase the
intellectual dominance of Americans (like myself), Europeans,
and international agencies in African health development; and
it would argue for vigorous efforts and measures to increase
effective connectivity and active participation by Africans.
Best regards,
Dave Gwatkin
International Health Policy Program
Washington, D.C., USA
mailto:dgwatkin@worldbank.org
[We thought about analysing the contributions in the proposed way already
but the problems is that from the name and e-mail address - sometimes the
only information we have about a contributor - we can't decide which
category he/she belongs to. Dave is right in his assumption that only the
minority of contributions to AFRO-NETS originate in Africa - therefore my
proposal to hold back on the health card issue and wait for the opinion of
our colleagues from the field. DN Mod.]
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