WFPHA Joins GEO
The World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA) received notification that it had been recognised as a participating organisation in the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). This was announced on 28 November 2007 at the GEO-IV Plenary Session in Cape Town, South Africa. The GEO is coordinating efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS. The WFPHA was enthusiastically welcomed as a participating organisation and is expected to make major impact on key areas within the Health Societal Benefit Area.
GEO was launched in response to calls for action by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the G8 (Group of Eight) leading industrialised countries. These high-level meetings recognised that international collaboration is essential for exploiting the growing potential of Earth observations to support decision making in an increasingly complex and environmentally stressed world.
GEO is a voluntary partnership of governments and international organisations. It provides a framework within which these partners can develop new projects and coordinate their strategies and investments.
As of November 2007, GEO’s Members include 72 governments (including South Africa) and the European Commission. In addition, 46 intergovernmental, international, and regional organisations with a mandate in Earth observation or related issues have been recognised as Participating Organisations.
GEO is constructing GEOSS on the basis of a 10-Year Implementation Plan for the period 2005 to 2015. The Plan defines a vision statement for GEOSS, its purpose and scope, expected benefits, and the nine ‘Societal Benefit Areas’ of disasters, health, energy, climate, water, weather, ecosystems, agriculture and biodiversity. For further information, please see the GEO website: http://www.earthobservations.org/.
WFPHA President S.M. Asib Nasim said that this is an exciting opportunity for the Federation to use its collective expertise. Over the years to come, the WFPHA will contribute to the world’s improved understanding of how the environment affects human health and well-being.
WFPHA Press Release, December 26, 2007
‘The Slave has Overcome’:
William Pick’s remarkable personal story
Professor William
Pick’s autobiography,
The Slave has Overcome,
is now available. It traces
his ancestry from a freed
East African slave and
the earliest Khoisan
groups at the Cape,
and tells the story of his
childhood and schooling
on the Cape Flats. His
first encounters with
apartheid, his increasing
conscientisation and
activism, with its
attendant risks and some
narrow escapes, are
described in vivid detail.
As one of the youngest
graduates in medicine at
the University of Cape
Town, his career followed
an extraordinary trajectory
from family practice in Ravensmead, through academic
Public Health, to the headship of the University of the
Witwatersrand’s School of Public Health and ultimately the
interim Presidency of the South African Medical Research
Council. He describes the agony of declining a personal
professorship at the University of Cape Town and moving to the University of the Witwatersrand, and marvels at the
unique opportunity to contribute to national health policy.
The account of the time spent in England and at Harvard in the USA, provides interesting insights into his
international academic activities, and his honest and outspoken account of the struggle for a nonracial, non-sexist, equitable South Africa in academia and public institutions makes for compelling reading
“……remarkable accomplishment of a descendant of the
|
“William Pick has written a remarkable book recalling
|
Price: R159
Enquiries : pickwm@mweb.co.za
or A106 Dolphin Beach, 1 Marine Drive, Table View 7441
or tel 021 556 5678; fax 086 648 1473
