The GAVI Alliance has already established a panel of potential Independent Review Committee (IRC) members to support their innovative grant proposal process, and progress monitoring and evaluation system. GAVI is keen that this panel should grow and more closely reflect the demographic profile of its low and middle income partner countries. Applications to join the IRC panel are therefore invited from suitably post graduate qualified and experienced health and public health experts with a range of backgrounds. Below are English and French versions of the advert, together with links to .PDF files of the adverts.

The Industrial Relations Court in Blantyre has granted an injunction restraining the University Council, the regulatory authority of the University of Malawi, from 'completely shutting down' two constituent colleges of the University of Malawi. The Council ordered that the Blantyre-based Polytechnic and Zomba-based Chancellor College be sealed to prevent all academic and general staff from accessing their offices following the now seven-week-old stand-off between lecturers and Inspector General of Police Peter Mukhito. But the lecturers appeared before the Industrial Relations Court arguing that the Council's order was illegal.

Despite improvements in Southern Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2010 compared to 2009, job creation and poverty reduction remain limited. Charles Dan, a representative of the International Labour Organisation expressed this view at a meeting in Windhoek of Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) ministers responsible for labour. He said that GDP for Southern Africa as a whole has improved in 2010, up from negative one per cent in 2009 to 3.7 per cent in 2010. He said the real test of recovery should not be whether the economy in aggregate is back on track but whether there are concrete signs of improvement in the labour market.

South African families are in crisis according to a new report released by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). Titled ‘The First Steps to Healing the South African Family’, the report documents the extent of family breakdown in South Africa and the effect this is having on children and the youth. The research includes often under-acknowledged influences on children and young people that affect many issues in South Africa - from violent crime, through to entrenching a cycle of poverty, as well as the values and norms South Africans hold.