We are pleased to announce the rescheduled date of the Yaoundé Seminar for summer 2021, following disruptions to the originally planned 2020 conference due to COVID-19.
YAOUNDE SEMINAR 2021 - ETHICS, PUBLIC POLICY, AND HEALTH
We are pleased to announce a call for abstracts for the 6th annual Yaoundé Seminar on Ethics, Public Policy, and Health, to be held August 16-22, 2021 at Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé (Cameroon).
Abstract submission extended deadline: March 2021
The Yaoundé Seminar is an international training and research seminar that brings doctoral students and early career faculty together with distinguished scholars to explore a topic at the intersection of ethics and public policy, while encouraging greater discourse between scholars working in Africa and the global west and north .
2020-2021 Sponsoring Institutions: Ethics and Public Policy Laboratory (EthicsLab) of the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaoundé, Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Rutgers University Center for Population-Level Bioethics, Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, University of Geneva Institute for Ethics, History and the Humanities, Stanford University McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, University of St. Gallen Competence Center for African Research, Université du Québec à Rimousky Groupe de recherche en Ethique Ethos
Topic: Ethics, Public Policy, and Health
2021 Keynote speakers:
Caesar Atuire (University of Ghana)
James Wilson (UCL)
Christine Straehle (University of Hamburg)
Thaddeus Metz (University of Pretoria, South Africa)
Sridhar Venkatapuram (King's College London)
Samia Hurst (University of Geneva)
Shlomi Segall (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Anastase Dzudie (Clinical Research Education and Networking, Cameroon)
Riana Oelofsen (University of Fort Hare, South Africa)
Rose Leke (University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon)
Topic Description: Health makes a significant contribution to what we can do and be in our lives. Today, equipped with knowledge about the medical, social, and behavioral determinants of health, we have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve healthy conditions of life for broad and diverse populations. Conversely, through inaction or inattention we risk adding to health and social inequalities that arise between individuals, groups, and states, leaving populations less healthy than they otherwise should be. The policies that state-actors adopt with respect to health and health care have a key role to play in negotiating between these alternate futures. This raises questions of ethics, public policy, and health: what do states owe their populations with respect to securing healthy conditions of life? How can public policies be structured to efficiently promote and fairly distribute population health?
Answers to these questions may differ, depending on the context in which they are asked. Public policymakers, particularly in low and middle income countries (LMICs), often must grapple with specific challenges - including weak institutions, substantially limited resources, unequal global power structures, legacies of colonialism, war, and civil unrest - that shape the dilemmas they face, or the normative circumstances of their decision making. How can ethical analysis help chart a course forward for health systems in these circumstances? Think, for example, of the significant role that international and non-governmental health actors currently play in the financing and delivery of health services in LMICs; or, the emigration of locally-trained health workers to practice in the health systems of richer nations.
Other questions of public policy and health - e.g., how to ethically allocate scarce health resources? regulate access to research and new technologies? exercise state power to promote or contain threats to public health? ensure the ethical conduct of biomedical research and clinical care? - are not unique to LMICs, but may nonetheless demand new methods of ethical reflection to address in a legitimate manner for these settings. The recognition of health as a human right has emerged as a powerful orienting framework in these debates, and begs continued development. Yet formal acceptance of such rights statements, including by many African region member nations in treaties and constitutional documents, may belie potential tensions between the universal standards they espouse and culturally specific values. How can ethical analysis address conflicts between universal ethical principles and local traditions and values to inform public policies for health? What new frameworks and methodologies, as well as investments in the ethics research and practice capacity within LMICs, are needed to address ethical dilemmas in health policy, specifically for African nations?
We invite submissions engaging the above topics, as well as other general, related questions. We plan to approach these questions both from the perspective of analytical political philosophy, ethics, rights-based frameworks, and from the perspective of non-Western traditions, eg African philosophy. Suggested topics include (this list is not meant to be exhaustive):
conceptualization of health, health inequity, and disease
justice in health and healthcare, ideal and non-ideal theory
the content and role of human rights for health
responsibilities of states, individuals and global actors in securing health for a population
limits to state power and respecting individual rights in population health policy
methods for ethical priority setting and rationing of scarce resources in health systems
moral obligations of those who work for the health sector
tensions between universal ethical ideals and culturally specific values in health
relevance of cultural diversity and values pluralism for ethical health policy
ethics of various health-relevant topics, eg, social determinants of health, health system design, health innovation and technology, health workforce development and regulation, research regulation (including standards for studies / trials in African states), response to epidemics and pandemics, climate change, and economic development, etc.
Submission guidelines:
The Yaoundé Seminar organizing committee invites PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and early career faculty at African and non-African Universities to submit abstracts (400-500 words) on themes related to the conference's topic. Graduate students finishing their Masters degree and planning to start a PhD will also be considered as auditors and should email us their CV along with their abstract.
Abstracts should be submitted via email to thierry.ngosso@unisg.ch , kelsey_berry@hms.harvard.edu, jennifer.mike@aun.edu.ng, and thalia.porteny@tufts.edu by March 2021 (deadline extended due to coronavirus pandemic). Applications and presentations can be either in English or in French, but speaking French is not a requirement to attend the event. The keynote presentations will be in English. Applicants will be selected on the basis of the quality of their abstract and its alignment with conference themes, as well as potential to contribute productively to the seminar and to the development of their field. Applicants should expect to be informed of their acceptance by June 2021.
About the Yaounde Seminar:
The Yaoundé Seminar is an international and interdisciplinary conference held annually since 2012 in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The aim of the Yaoundé Seminar is to train a diverse new generation of scholars and contribute to the development of ethics as an inclusive field in discourse with public policy, with particular focus on creating relationships between African and non-African scholars and supporting ethics training and capacity in Africa. Seminar participants, including PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career faculty, attend presentations by distinguished scholars in the field, present their own research in moderated panels and seminars, and receive one-on-one mentorship on their research projects, in addition to building community through shared meals and experiences in Cameroon. *In 2021, the conference will be held in-person, on-site at UCAC in Cameroon, with a limited number of slots available for off-site, virtual participation upon request.
Accepted participants attending in-person must pay a fee of $ 400 (faculty and postdocs at non-African Universities), $ 300 (students at non-African Universities), $ 150 (faculty and postdocs at African Universities), or $ 100 (students at African Universities ) to cover the costs of accommodations, meals, and workshop materials, and must also pay for their own travel to Yaounde (Cameroon). Fees for virtual participants will be provided upon request.
A limited number of fee waivers and travel scholarships are available for scholars from African Universities . Applicants should indicate their suitability for a waiver / scholarship in their application materials.
2020-2021 Organizing Committee:
Thierry Ngosso, Ph.D., Ethics and Public Policy Laboratory (EthicsLab), Catholic University of Central Africa
Kelsey N Berry, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School, Center for Bioethics
Jennifer Mike, Ph.D., American University of Nigeria
Thalia Porteny, Ph.D., Tufts University, Lab for Ethics, Aging, and Community Health