Mugarura Health Justice Initiative

Law is a necessary element required to put public health policy into effect. Around the world, legislative measures exist to set standards for tobacco control, safe food, clean air, etc but since these measures do not exist in many parts of the world,  the citizens are unnecessarily exposed to certain health risks that have already been eliminated or reduced in other countries through simple yet effective regulation and proper enforcement of laws.

HealthJustice brings together professionals from the relevant fields of science, medicine, economics, and law to create powerful tools for policy change.

 ALL WE DO IS TO ENSURE QUALITY HEALTHCARE, SOCIO-ECONOMIC JUSTICE FOR ALL ESPECIALLY THE YOUNG GENERATION. For site map, just one click at Welcome-home to navigate-

Human rights, transitional justice and public health

Pham PN, Vinck P, Weinstein HM

Mass violence, armed conflict, genocide, and complex humanitarian emergencies continue to create major social and public health disasters at the dawn of the 21st Century. Transitional justice, a set of policies designed to address the effects of war on traumatized communities and bring justice, lies at the nexus of public health and conflict. Despite the paucity of empirical evidence, advocates of transitional justice have claimed that it can alleviate the effects of trauma, deter future violence, and bring about social reconstruction in war-affected communities.

Empirical evidence--including new data and analyses suggests a link between trauma, mental health and attitudes towards and responses to transitional justice programs, but there has been little theoretical discussion about the intersection between public health and transitional justice, and even less empirical research to generate discussion between these two fields.

Yet, public health professionals have an important role to play in assessing the impact of transitional justice on communities affected by mass violence.  To illustrate the discussion, we examine new data and analyses from two cases of contemporary conflicts, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and northern Uganda.

Beyond World Bank Ranking: Macroeconomic Challenges on the Ground

Many Rwandans among other World Bank ranked fast-developing countries in 2009 have been recently celebrating the progress they made. Remember in this year, Rwanda boosted its ranking 78 places from 138 to 60, becoming runner-up for best reformer globally. 

We, all Banyarwanda are very proud of our achievement in various angles of development. However, in light of various recent reports of the UN, Common Wealth, Hunger Free International, and Global Policy reports, it is beyond the ranking that the Annual Doing Business Index attributed us. It is now an encouragement to do much more, together to achieve more. I am very sure we can make it. 

Our intention is to call all the Rwandans, partners and good-wishers not to close our hands. We still have the big Goliaths of food security, housing, human rights, demographic issues, education, and many others.  Below, we look at some of the points we can urgently improve on otherwise all can fill a handbook.

The wealth and income disparity do not thoroughly depict the economic progress

According to Prof. Micheal Parkin of the University of Western Ontario, wealth is a stock of assets, and income is the flow of earnings that results from the stock of wealth. In an ordinary language, you earn income as a rate of return from what you own. However, the fact that some traders and business people have higher income and wealth does not necessarily mean all the people are doing well. Among others, the tycoons are the tiny number from people who erect the skyscrapers.    

It is worth mentioning here two heartbreaking trends: only 20% of world richest households share among them 83% of world wealth while rest of the population (80%) struggle to share 17%. One journalist recently lamented that some fellow citizens go for one-week political retreats, take a foreign leave in the USA, and Europe. for more visit: www.newtimes.co.rw

Poverty and human rights: Twin Goliaths 

Let us commonly understand poverty as a relative concept. It is not what clothes people put on. Poverty is a situation in which a household's income is too low to be able to buy the quantities of basic needs. Irene Khan, the Secretary General of Amnesty International argues that poverty is first and foremost not a problem of economics but of human rights. As the numbers of people living in poverty swell to upwards of 2 billion, she argues that poverty is the world's worst human rights crisis