Navigating Parliament and access to information can at times be difficult for ordinary citizens. The past week was no exception for members of the Parliament Watch (ParlyWatch) collective who monitors these parliamentary meetings. Although the blockages are not official, the systems and ways of getting access to information and committees are becoming more and more hidden, changeable and closed,writes Sam Waterhouse
News
On 3 November, the Dullah Omar Institute hosted the President of Open Society Foundation, Chris Stone and OSF-SA CEO Fatima Hassan.
Nobody wants to become a crime statistic yet the crime figures released recently show the probability of this happening to the average South African remains high. Despite crime affecting all citizens across communities, their experiences may vary depending on certain factors.
What started out as a petition to parliament about the underfunding of child welfare NPOs on behalf of residents of the East Rand in Johannesburg, has this week spiralled into a broader call for a more comprehensive solution to underfunding across all provinces.
Millions of South Africans dependent on public healthcare has been feeling the impact of staff shortages in health facilities for years, a community health organisation in the Western Cape claimed.
Sexual and reproductive health is a fundamental human right as well as human development issue that states must strive to fulfil. It is guaranteed in various international and regional human rights instruments as well as national laws and policies. This was true at the recent Regional Colloquium on The Role of National Human Rights Institutions in Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights in East and Southern Africa Regions.
On 24 October 2017, the SARChI Chair in Multilevel Government Law and Policy, Prof Nico Steytler hosted a dialogue session with Dr Conrad Bosire and Dr Zemelak Ayele. The topic of the dialogue was: The politics of electioneering in Africa: The case of Kenya and Ethiopia.
The Dullah Omar Institute hosted Zemelak Ayele, an Associate Professor at the Centre for Federal Studies, Addis Ababa University as a visiting scholar, from 18 September until 25 October.
Zambia's average prison population was 21,000 against a holding capacity of only 8,500 in 2016. A symposium in which ACJR participated resulted in the establishment of technical working groups to address key aspects of the problem.
The Dullah Omar Institute is gravely concerned about the arbitrary arrest of thirteen persons, recently carried out by the Tanzanian Police.
The Dullah Omar Institute is inviting further applications to study towards a Masters Degree in Multilevel Government with a specific focus on Food Security.
The head of the Children’s Rights Project, Prof Benyam Dawit Mezmur was invited to be judge in the final round of the 2017 National Schools Moot Court Competition on the 8th October in the Constitutional Court in Pretoria, together with Justices Madlanga, Mhlantla, Mojapelo, Kollapen, and a number of other experts.