The African Alliance works actively and consciously with power, careful of its our effect on the systems we operate within. Critical to our approach is working actively to elevate the voices of those who are ignored or made invisible in traditional civil society practice and ensuring that the diversity of African voices are heard clearly and that Africans who contribute to knowledge generation, particularly for the development or advancement of global public goods, benefit equally from these technologies.
In practice, this sees all our research, community engagement and advocacy grounded in transformative, feminist participatory action research (FPAR) approaches to ensure that any interactions with communities include a change agenda to address stigma, discrimination and inequality, at whatever level it occurs. Engagement processes are collaborative, to ensure there is no further marginalisation of participants through the process itself.
The African Alliance’s director and chief strategist, Tian Johnson, addressed experts gathered at the World Health Organisation’s headquarters in Geneva to discuss how to boost the quality of research worldwide. Watch their speech below....