Paper short abstract:

Starting from my fieldwork in Ghana and Ethiopia, I would like to reflect on some of the social actors who normally are not involved in the healthcare project. I refer mainly the Pentecostal and the Spiritual churches, and to some kind of healers who cannot be immediately recognized as “traditional”.

Paper long abstract:

Starting from my fieldwork experiences in Ghana (from 90s to 2006) and Ethiopia (from 2007 up to now) I would like to propose a reflection on some of the social actors who normally are not involved in the healthcare project. I refer mainly to the churches, especially the Pentecostal and the Spiritual ones, and to some kind of healers who cannot be immediately recognized as "traditional", and who do not belong to any association of traditional healers.

The International and national strategies for constructing a delivery health care system in many African countries, have reserved a certain space to different social actors: the Public facilities, the Private ones, the NGO and the Charity organizations. As stressed sometimes, those actors have not always facilitated a reduction in inequalities in access to healthcare services. Paradoxically, their intervention has created new inequalities and new forms of unequal citizenship.

Describing this framework for Ethiopia and Ghana, I would like to reflect on those actors who normally have no room in national and international projects. On one hand the churches, acting in the field of health through their peculiar healing activity and ven creating support networks for patients. On the other, taking into account those healers "on the border" using syncretic forms of care, that, since they are not properly "traditional", are not always taken into account by policy makers