Health in a Dynamic World

The world has faced a number of major health challenges over the past few decades. These include the resurgence of a number of infectious diseases, the HIV epidemic, periodic pollution disasters, the rising burden of chronic illness and the SARS outbreak. There is a growing realisation that the world’s population is interconnected and an associated concern about the possibility of global pandemics. Health has been rising up the political agenda in rich and poor countries. Governments and charitable foundations are increasingly willing to support initiatives for addressing health-related needs. The political concern about global health is creating major opportunities for improving the lives of poor people. It is also creating risks that poorly designed interventions will fail to achieve their objective or even have damaging consequences. This paper argues that we are approaching a major turning point in the organisation of national and global health systems. Its aim is to stimulate debate about how to support systems that take into account the complex interactions between ecology, technology and social organisation within which health problems arise and are addressed. Its primary concern is how best to ensure that the health systems that emerge from this period of change address the needs of the poor.ESR

Improving accountability for equitable health and well-being in urban informal spaces: Moving from dominant to transformative approaches

This article critically reviews the literature on urban informality, inequity, health, well-being and accountability to identify key conceptual, methodological and empirical gaps in academic and policy discourses. We argue that critical attention to power dynamics is often a key missing element in these discourses and make the case for explicit attention to the operation of power throughout conceptualization, design and conduct of research in this space. We argue that: (a) urban informality reflects the exercise of power to confer and withhold advantage; (b) the dominant biomedical model of health poorly links embodied experiences and structural contexts; (c) existing models of accountability are inadequate in unequal, pluralistic governance and provision environments. We trace four conceptual and empirical directions for transformative approaches to power relations in urban health equity research

The Centaur’s Kick: Backlash as Disruptive Upgrades to Patriarchal Orders

Backlash is not always pushing back against progress for women, but how is it still patriarchal? Sliced into three sections – on confluence, contestations, and cartographies – this article draws on a thesis about backlash as the exploitation of insecurity wrought by apparent crises to re/shape social orders, through re-fixing symbolic sites, namely the body, family, and nation. It begins by describing a confluence of types of actors and projects silencing feminist voice. Contesting gendered backlash narratives about the three sites are then explored, followed by a more theoretical section reflecting on cartographies of resonant concurrence and contradictions in backlash. Reflecting on masculinities, identification, and levels of hegemonic power, the argument is that the fixing of sites re/naturalises three deep-level patriarchal logics – phallogocentric binary (body), hierarchical (family), and categorical closed-systems (nation) principles – which helps us theorise the evolution of patriarchal hegemonies. This may inform more strategic countering of backlash.Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida

EMERGE policy brief

This briefing highlights some implications for policy from the learning in the EMERGE project. It makes the case for re-framing policy on gender equality in order to more productively factor in men and boys, and it suggests actions and approaches that policy makers can take to reframe policy in this area.DFI

Masculinities and Transition: Enduring Privilege

There has been significant progress in gender equality globally over recent decades, such as in school enrolment or in labour force participation rates, and in certain groups of men’s and boys’ attitudes to gender equality; particularly among younger, educated males in urban areas. Yet, historically embedded structural barriers and patriarchal relations seem to counter progress in other areas – such as unpaid care work, or women’s access to property and productive resources.In the context of rising global and local economic inequalities, we have also seen the emergence of ‘backlash’ against women’s empowerment in many settings. This is relevant in many countries undergoing transitions where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development operates. This report aims to explore experiences of men and constructions of masculinity in four significant transition countries – Egypt, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Ukraine – to consider how best to complement the Bank’s women-focused interventions in its projects and investments, within its mandate to enhance both the resilience of transitions and equality of opportunity

Masculinities and Transition: Summary Brief

This brief is based on a larger report (Edström et al. 2019) that explores how economic transition in Egypt, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Ukraine has been experienced by different groups of men, and its impacts on gender relations. It aims to assist the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development(EBRD) and other stakeholders to consider ways of engaging men as agents of positive change for gender equality – alongside women and girls – as well as to complement women-focused interventions in projects and investments to enhance both the resilience of transitions and equality of opportunity