The Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) in Collaboration with the Leaning Network based at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town (UCT) and with support from IDRC invites students in Universities in Uganda to submit concept notes for their research to be conducted within the project “Health System Governance: Community Participation as a key strategy for realising the right to health”.

Background
Center for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) in Collaboration with the Leaning Network based at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town (UCT) are undertaking an IDRC supported project which entails research on “Health System Governance: Community Participation as a key strategy for realising the Right to Health”. The overall aim of the project is to develop models for community participation in health that advance health equity and strengthen governance systems for health.

The main objective of the project is to explore the hypothesis that building civil society capacity to participate in health care and in services that provide the social determinants of health using a rights-based approach, in the context of interventions to enhance service responsiveness will help to address inequities in health and promote stronger and more sustainable governance systems for health that give voice to the poorest and most marginalized in developing countries.

We welcome approaches from students to conduct research within the broader aims of the project, and invite you to submit a concept note for a study you would like to conduct under the auspices of the project.

Objectives of the call
This project aims to identify, in two sites, one in South Africa and one in Uganda, opportunities for best practice in utilizing community participation as a vehicle for realizing the health rights. As part of the project, we will be developing and testing training materials targeting primary health committees and structures that act as the voice for communities in relation to the health services. In addition, students will play a key role in documenting, describing and evaluating the processes and effectiveness of different strategies of the project.

Research Topics
The research topics should focus on the challenges regarding the sustainability of community participation strategies; effective participation strategies for the right to health ; enhanced responsiveness and better governance of the health system at local level up to the higher levels and how to build stronger conceptual and advocacy links between human rights approaches to health and health equity.

Eligibility
CEHURD and will collaborate with the Universities to select the students that will qualify to undertake research under the project. These students will typically be doing studies in the areas of Public Health, Human Rights, Social Sciences, Law and related areas. The students should be undertaking their research projects within academic year 2012/2013

Support
Students whose projects are approved under this collaboration will receive a student bursary to support their field costs and field work, as long as the project meets a research objective under the broader project aims.

For any inquiries concerning this call, please send an email to info@cehurd.org.