Supporting inclusive and accountable health systems decisions in Ghana and Kenya for universal health coverage – SUPPORT-SYSTEMS.

Participatory democracy: government frameworks and the practices and challenges of participatory engagement in South Africa” (tentative)

Dr. Fiona Anciano is an associate professor and social science researcher at the University of Western Cape and co-chair of Participedia’s Democratic Accountability research cluster. She will briefly introduce Participedia—a global network and crowdsourcing platform for collating democratic innovations, with the aim to strengthen and mobilize knowledge about participatory democratic innovations throughout the world.
Further, informed by case studies of sanitation in informal settlements and informal settlement upgrading in South Africa, she will talk about the practice, and challenges, of participatory engagement in South Africa linked to local government initiatives. Her comments will be centered on the potential of citizen engagement, and the ways in which government mandated forms of participation have unintended consequences for meaningful engagement. She will also reflect on power and participation in participatory spaces.

Dr. Jacinta Nzinga from KEMRI Welcome Trust and co-investigator in the SUPPORT-SYSTEMS project will comment about the application these ideas to health systems decisions.