Recording
Watch the recording of the webinar.
Programme
15.00-15.05 CET: Welcome by Prof. Dan Banik, Professor of Political Science, Director of The Oslo SDG Initiative, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo
15.05-15.30 CET: Global Health from the South? An Ethnography of the Pan-African e-Network, with Prof. Vincent Duclos, Professor at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
15.30-15.40 CET: Comments by Professor Renu Modi, Professor at University of Mumbai Centre for African Studies.
15.40-16.00 CET: Discussion moderated by Prof. Dan Banik.
Abstract
In September 2004, former president of India Abdul Kalam proposed to connect Africa with India through a network aimed at providing healthcare services. Five years later, the Pan-African e-Network (PAN) was launched. PAN is a network connecting doctors, patients and students across the African continent with hospitals and universities in India.
This webinar focuses on the medical component of PAN. The webinar will provide an overview of the project’s key components. First, it will describe some of the historical events that have led to the launch of PAN. These include the large-scale development of satellite-based telemedicine networks in India, the global expansion of Indian corporate hospitals (including in Africa), and the political attempts at framing what a “shining example of South-South cooperation” (PAN’s slogan) might look like. PAN aims to propose a unique model of global health, from the South. Secondly, the webinar will describe PAN’s network infrastructure which connects hospitals in over thirty countries. It will show this is an infrastructure which is at once spectacular and mundane, immense and limited. Finally, the webinar will examine some of the medical implications of PAN. It will suggest that care, in PAN, is not evenly distributed. Paradoxically, by connecting remote doctors and patients PAN produces medical enclaves. Ultimately, as a gift, the Pan-African e-Network contributes in remaking the identities of the giver and receiver.