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Indigenous People's Right and Accountability Thematic Hub Anchor: CEGSS, Guatemala
The anchor for the Indigenous People’s Rights and Accountability Thematic Hub is the Center for the Study of Equity and Governance in Health Systems (CEGSS by its initials in Spanish), based in Guatemala. CEGSS has over a decade experience engaging with the governance structures and conditions of marginalization that impact indigenous health. Indigenous people of 23 ethnicities make up 45% of Guatemala’s 14 million inhabitants. They experience stark inequalities in income, health and education resulting from decades of social and economic exploitation, and were particularly targeted by the country’s military dictatorships during the 36 year-long internal war. This conflict left 200,000 victims, who were predominantly indigenous, and contributed to the worsening of already weak public services in rural and impoverished areas [9]. In our primary line of work, CEGSS supports the development of a citizen-led initiative for state accountability for the right to health in rural indigenous municipalities. Through our experiences, we have gained critical insights into the complex nature of pathways to redressing inequity and the potential of systems thinking approaches to enhance efforts to promote indigenous health. To meet the challenge of engaging with the conditions underlying inequalities and promoting transformational change, equity-oriented research and practice in the field of indigenous health requires: engaging power, context-adapted strategies to improve service delivery, and mobilizing networks of collective action. The experience gained by CEGSS will be shared through this knowledge hub. Also other organization and individual members of the hub will share their own learning and experiences. Within CEGSS, the specific persons responsible to coordinate the hub will be Dr. Walter Flores.
9. Flores W, Ruano AL, Funchal DP. Social participation within a context of political violence: implications for the promotion and exercise of the right to health in Guatemala. Health Human Rights. 2009; 11(1):37-48.
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