Chapter 1: EAC’s Health Crisis

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We would like to express our warmest appreciation for all those who helped to make this resource book possible.  

Above all, we wish to thank the book's authors.  As BU law students, Brandeis/SIDS MA students and ICLAD interns, the authors learned to use institutional legislative theory and methodology (ILTAM) to guide their search for relevant evidence and to organize the facts logically in research reports to justify their proposed bills' detailed provisions as likely to help improve all East Africans' health care.  The authors worked as a team to gather evidence, debate the relevant issues, and write their chapters.¹   They shared the hope that their work might facilitate the efforts of East Africans – more knowledgeable about East African realities – to assess and draft effectively implemented laws to alter or eliminate institutions that perpetuated East Africans' relatively short life expectancy.  In the process, they aimed to demonstrate the potentials – as well as the limits – of using law to facilitate democratic social change.

We wish to congratulate the staff of the International Consortium for Law and Development (see www.ICLAD-law.org) – especially Lorna Seitz, now ICLAD's Executive Director, and Laura Lucas, ICLAD's Director of Research – for setting up the summer programs which, through a learning-by-doing process, equipped ICLAD interns with the theoretical and practical tools to conduct relevant research and draft research reports and bills.   We also appreciate the comments and suggestions ICLAD's board members have made for improvement of the resource book and arrangements for the proposed workshop.

We are thankful the support of Dean Maureen O'Rourke and then Associate Dean, Gerald Leonard, of the Boston University School of Law (BUSL) for this project, and the establishment of future links with the African Parliamentary Knowledge Network (APKN).   In this connection, we particularly welcome the proposal by Prof. Sean Kealy – now head of BUSL's legislative program – to invite African law-makers to submit requests to BU's legislative drafting clinic to assign students to draft bills, justified by research reports, to help resolve a specific social problem in their countries.

We especially want to express our appreciation to Elizabeth Bakibinga-GaswagaBakibinga-Gaswaga (Principal Legislative Counsel, Parliament of Uganda and member the Executive Council, Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel) for taking the initiative in arranging the proposed EAC workshop on Health Legislation for which this book’s chapters will serve as a resource; Flavio Zeni (Chief Technical Adviser of Africa i-Parliaments Action Plan, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in Nairobi, Kenya) for agreeing to co-sponsor, circulating the draft resource book, and helping to promote the on-going ‘learning-by-doing’ process hopefully sparked by this book and the workshop; the Hon. Speaker, Abdirahin Haithar Abdi, of the East African Legislative Assembly, for arranging for EALA support of the proposed workshop.

We also wish to thank Brian Quinn for providing the technical expertise for preparing the resource book's chapters, diagrams, maps, and tables, facilitating their exchange via the Internet with colleagues in the United States, East Africa, and throughout the world and making the final preparations for circulating the completed volume to all the participants in the EAC workshop and interested colleagues around the world.

And last, but by no means least, we want to express our real gratitude to Sue Morrison, our suite’s secretary.   She has always been helpful in the various projects on which we have worked.   In this case, however, she voluntarily undertook to copy edit this entire manuscript.  Once again, we are deeply in her debt.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS –

Robert B. Seidman and Ann Seidman, co-founders of ICLAD (www.ICLAD-law.org), work as Professors in the Boston University School of Law.  They taught for 12 years in African universities (Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa), and served as consultants for UNDP, USAID, DANIDA, and OECD for national workshops to strengthen legislative drafting capacity and law-making institutions in China, Bhutan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Guyana, Estonia, and several other countries.   The Seidmans co-authored  Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social Change: A Manual for Drafters (Kluwer, 2001; now available through ICLAD which has been published in 10+ languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia) as well as other materials for use in country-based 'learning-by-doing' processes (see www.ICLAD-law.org) 
 
Abel Mote recently graduated Brandeis University after completing his master's degree in sustainable international development. Prior to this, Mote worked as a consultant with various NGOs in Kenya, Somalia and Somaliland. He has developed and implemented projects on human rights, and established legal resource centers for marginalized communities.  He has also researched and designed projects on education, culture and poverty reduction in East Africa.

Ali Ross

Carolyn Musyimi currently serves as president and co-founder of Children of Africa initiative; she also works with ICLAD to ensure formulation of laws that will enable East Africa to manufacture pharmaceuticals locally. She completed her Master's degree in International Sustainable Development at Brandeis University in May 2008. Prior to this she worked with World Vision Kenya and did a comprehensive research on HIV/AIDS at Kibera and Dandora in Nairobi, Kenya with the Baptist AIDS Response agency.  Musyimi completed her undergraduate work at Daystar University in Kenya with a double major in Communication and Community Development.
 
Joyce Richard holds a Master's degree in Public Health Nursing from Boston University, and a law degree, JD, from Northeastern University School of Law.  Richard's experience in nursing includes work as a nurse practitioner in an inner-city health center in Boston.  Richard's other interests include issues of access to health care and environmental problems which affect public health.  Following graduation from law school, she worked as an environmental consultant to major institutional investors, as well as the general practice of law. 

LaKeisha M. Applegate is currently working on a law degree from Boston University.  Applegate received a Bachelor's of Arts with Honors from Brown University in Anthropology in 2002.  Prior to law school, Ms. Applegate worked for four years as a Research Assistant at Columbia University for a neurologist.  Ms. Applegate received her Master's in Public Health from Columbia University in 2006.  While at Boston University School of Law, Ms. Applegate has focused her studies on health law and worked as the research assistant for Ann and Robert Seidman beginning in May 2008.  During the summer of 2009, Ms. Applegate will work as a Summer Associate at Reed Smith LLP.  Ms. Applegate will serve as an editor for the Africa Parliaments Clinics in 2009-2010.

Mia Levi, after graduating college, worked as an intern for ICLAD with a special focus on health issues.   She served as an organizer for the ICLAD Google Group that prepared the EAC resource book.  Prior to attending Fordham Law School for her JD, she will be working for a year in an attorney general's office.

Michael Javid focused his legal studies in Boston College School of Law on private and public international law, and served as an ICLAD intern in 2007.  He graduated law school in 2009.  Prior to law school, Javid worked as a strategy consultant in financial services. Michael completed his undergraduate work at Cornell University with a degree in Economics. 

Michael Kempster has a medical degree and worked as a surgeon for many years before acquiring his JD from Suffolk University's School of Law.   He participated as an editor and student instructor in the Boston University School of Law legislative drafting clinic, and has been working with the ICLAD on issues of law related to health.

Nisha Patel graduated from the Boston University School of Law with a JD in 2009.  While at BUSL, she focused her studies on corporate law and the law of developing nations.  She served as the Development Article Editor on the Review of Banking and Financial Law.  During the Fall 2008 semester, Ms. Patel studied abroad at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. While at Tsinghua University, she studied Chinese Law including: Chinese Corporation Law; Chinese Investment Law; Chinese Constitutional Law; and Chinese Administration Law.  Patel received a Bachelors of Science in both Accountancy and Finance from the University of Illinois in 2003.  Before law school, she worked for three years as an Internal Audit Consultant.   She is currently an associate in the Corporate Department at Locke, Lord, Bissell & Liddell LLP in Chicago. 
Ruha Devanesan received her Bachelor's of Arts in Journalism and Political Science from Rutgers University in 2006.  While at Boston University School of Law, she has focused her studies on International Law and Legislative Drafting, working with ICLAD for two of her three years at BU.  She is also concurrently pursuing a Master's Degree in International Relations from the Boston University International Relations Department.  Upon graduation, Devanesan hopes to work in Legislative Drafting for Developing Countries or in International Development work, focusing on development in post-conflict nations and in South Asia.

Chapter 1: EAC’s Health Crisis