Small is beautiful: demystifying and simplifying standard operating procedures: a model from the ethics review and consultancy committee of the Cameroon Bioethics Initiative

Abstract Background Research ethics review is a critical aspect of the research governance framework for human subjects research. This usually requires that research protocols be submitted to a research ethics committee (REC) for review and approval. This has led to very rapid developments in the domain of research ethics, as RECs proliferate all over the globe in rhyme with the explosion in human subjects research. The work of RECs has increasingly become elaborate, complex, and in many cases urgent, necessitating supporting rules and procedures of operation. Guidelines for elaborating standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the functioning of RECs have also been proposed. The SOPs of well-placed and well-resourced RECs have tended to pay much attention to details, resulting, as a consequence, in generally long, elaborate, intricate and complex SOPs; a model that can hardly be replicated by other committees, equally under ethics review pressures, but working under much more constraining conditions in resource-destitute environments. Methods In this paper, we looked at the content and length of SOPs from African RECs and compared them to the World Health Organization (WHO)’s guidelines as the gold standard. We also looked at the SOPs from the Ethics Review and Consultancy Committee (ERCC) of the Cameroon Bioethics Initiative that we elaborated in a simplified way in 2013, and compared them to the WHO’s guidelines and to the other SOPs. Results Sixteen SOPs from 14 African countries were collected from various sources. Their average length was of 30 pages. By comparison to the guidance of the WHO, only six of them were found acceptable with more than 70 % of the criteria from the gold standard that were fully described. Among those six, two of them were very long and detailed (65 and 102 pages), while the four remaining SOPs ranged from 16 to 24 pages. The ERCC SOPs are seven pages long but maintain all that is of essence for the rigorous, efficient and timely review of protocols. Conclusions We are convinced that, because of their brevity, simplicity, clarity and user-friendliness, the ERCC SOPs recommend themselves as a model template to, at least, committees similarly situated and/or circumstanced as the ERCC of the Cameroon Bioethics Initiative is. In fact, brevity, clarity, simplicity and user-friendliness are recognized values. Whatever is brief and clear is better than what is not and saves time. What is simple and user-friendly is better than what is not even though the two have the same aims because it saves both time and mental energy. And if this be true in general, it is even truer of the context and its peculiar constraints that we are addressing

Voluntary medical male circumcision: responding to Brian Morris

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Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Cameroon: A statement from the Cameroon Bioethics Initiative

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused devastating consequences across economies in the world, with substantial effects on lives and livelihoods. Cameroon has been one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa with an increasing number of cases and fatalities from the disease. In an effort to support the government’s response to the epidemic, the Cameroon Bioethics Initiative (CAMBIN); a not-for-profit, non-governmental, non-political, non-discriminatory, multidisciplinary association issued a statement on COVID-19, primarily targeting the government and the general public. In this article, we situate the context within which the statement was issued and present the statement in its entirety

Perspectives of different stakeholders on data use and management in public health emergencies in sub-Saharan Africa: a meeting report

During public health emergencies (PHEs), data are collected and generated from a variety of activities and sources, including but not limited to national public health programs, research and community-based activities. It is critical that these data are rapidly shared in order to facilitate the public health response, epidemic preparedness, as well as research during and after the epidemic. Nonetheless, collecting and sharing data during PHEs can be challenging, especially where there are limited resources for public health and research-related activities. In a symposium that brought together different stakeholders that were involved in the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreaks in West Africa, meeting attendees shared their perspectives on the values and management of data during PHEs in sub-Saharan Africa. Key factors that could inform and facilitate data management during PHEs in sub-Saharan Africa were discussed, including using data to inform policy decisions and healthcare; a coordinated data collection and management scheme; identifying incentives for data sharing; and equitable data  governance mechanism that emphasise principles of reciprocity, transparency and accountability rather that trust between stakeholders or collaborators. Empirical studies are required to explore how these principles could inform best practices for data management and governance during PHE in sub-Saharan Africa.</ns3:p

Perspectives of different stakeholders on data use and management in public health emergencies in sub-Saharan Africa: a meeting report

During public health emergencies (PHEs), data are collected and generated from a variety of activities and sources, including but not limited to national public health programs, research and community-based activities. It is critical that these data are rapidly shared in order to facilitate the public health response, epidemic preparedness, as well as research during and after the epidemic. Nonetheless, collecting and sharing data during PHEs can be challenging, especially where there are limited resources for public health and research-related activities. In a symposium that brought together different stakeholders that were involved in the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreaks in West Africa, meeting attendees shared their perspectives on the values and management of data during PHEs in sub-Saharan Africa. Key factors that could inform and facilitate data management during PHEs in sub-Saharan Africa were discussed, including using data to inform policy decisions and healthcare; a coordinated data collection and management scheme; identifying incentives for data sharing; and equitable data  governance mechanism that emphasise principles of reciprocity, transparency and accountability rather that trust between stakeholders or collaborators. Empirical studies are required to explore how these principles could inform best practices for data management and governance during PHE in sub-Saharan Africa.</ns3:p

Elements of African Bioethics in a Western Frame

For millennia, Africans have lived on the African continent, in close contact with the diversities of nature: floral, faunal and human; and in so doing they have developed cultures, values, attitudes and perspectives to the problems, ethical and otherwise, that have arisen from the existential pressures of their situation. The problem, however, is that such values and perspectives do not necessarily form coherent ethical theories. Theory-making is a second order activity requiring a certain amount of leisure and comfort which the existential conditions of life on the African continent have not easily permitted in the retrospect-able past. The elements of African bioethics are to be found in its cultural values, traditions, customs and practices. These are research-able, highlight-able and usable by those who would. The bioethical problems of our current global existential situation are such that all possible solutions, no matter their provenance, ought to be tried. Western culture has far too loud a voice combined with deaf ears in contemporary ethical discourse. But it should never be forgotten that other cultures have their own word to say and that alternative values, ways of thinking and practices exist, and attempt should always be made to bring these out and to highlight them, if they could possibly contribute to the satisfactory solution of a global problem. This book brings together various papers on bioethical issues and problems, written at different times, some previously published, each of which attempts to bring out some African elements, perspective or concern. The African narrative style predominates through these essays but their framing conforms, more or less, to the Western paradigm for presenting academic issues

Road Companion to Democracy and Meritocracy : Further Essays from an African Perspective

Each of the essays in this book is marked by a certain simplicity and clarity, a seriousness tinged with humour, masking a profundity that are unmistakably characteristic of Godfrey B. Tangwa alias Rodcod Gobata, one of the leading critical minds amongst Cameroonians. The essays are centred on the theme of democracy and meritocracy which the author believes to be the pre-conditions for genuine development in Africa. The immediate focus of these essays is Cameroon, a country remarkable for experimenting with French/English bilingualism and for having a political dictatorship which claims, wrongly or rightly, to have transformed itself into a democracy; but they are equally relevant to other countries in Africa and beyond. Each of the essays stands alone but they are all telling various aspects of the same story from various angles at various times using different modes of expression. Anyone who seeks a glimpse of understanding of the trouble with Africa and particularly with Cameroon, 10 years into the 21st century, would read this book with great profit

I Spit on their Graves : Testimony Relevant to the Democratization Struggle in Cameroon

The essays collected in this volume are, by the depth of their analysis and the breath of their vision, indeed 'No Trifling Matter'. They are a chronicle of the events in contemporary Cameroonian society, especially as concerns the conduct of public affairs therein. Over and above its relevance for our own time, this chronicle will, in the decades that lie ahead, serve as a rich source of information, opinion and comment which future generations, anxious to understand the making of an era whose impact, positive or negative, is destined to survive long after the longest-living of its principal actors and actresses shall have disappeared from the face of the Earth, will find a great benefit. Rotcod Gobata has, through these essays, lit and placed on a pedestal, a candle whose flame shall never die and whose glow shall serve as a beacon to guide and to inspire generations yet unborn

No Trifling Matter : Contributions of an Uncompromising Critic to the Democratic Process in Cameroon

No Trifling Matter is a collection of controversial, critical weekly commentary on the reluctance of a monolithic regime to yield to popular aspirations for democracy in Cameroon. In these essays written between 1990 and November 1992, Godfrey Tangwa, alias Rotcod Gobata, doesnt quibble. He comes across as a man of courage and resolve; one ready to swim upstream in a manner of a desperate midwife eager to prevent a still birth (in this case, of democracy). His column is as daring an embarrassment to Biyas démocratie avancée as the radio programme Cameroon Report (later Cameroon Calling), was to Presidents Ahidjo and Biya in the hey days of the parti unique. Rotcod Gobata believes the time has come for Cameroon to graduate from a country over milked by mediocrity and callous indifference, to the paradise that it was meant to be for the poor and downtrodden. In this regard, he belongs with that rare breed of intellectuals who are genuine in their pursuit of collective betterment, and who in consequence, have opted to distance themselves from the stomach and all its trappings. This position is to be commended and encouraged, especially in a system where explanation is often mistaken for subversion, a system where the stomach is about the only political path-finder - the sole compass in use, a country where the champions of falsehood want all at their beck and call, and where a handful of thirsting palates daily jostle to share with Count Dracula the blood of the common and forgotten. Rotcod Gobata wants the new Cameroon to be rid of the ills and failures of the past five decades that have made it impossible for Cameroonians in their millions to live productive and creative lives