Development

First, I want to welcome Julia Robinson to Global Health.  Julia joins us with a diverse background in health advocacy and development work – most recently in South Africa working at mothers2mothers and previously in Sierra Leone at the West Africa Fistula Foundation.  As a passionate advocate for women’s health rights and with a lens of […]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, is the foundational document of modern human rights. In Article 25, the UDHR lays out the right to health: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and […]

The turmoil in Egypt raises endless questions about accountability. To name a few: Is it possible for a dictator to be accountable to his people? What responsibility do Egypt’s allies have for holding him accountable? Are the massive public demonstrations currently on display doing any more for accountability than the previous status quo? Any leadership […]

The return of former president Jean-Claude Duvalier was a shock to Haiti, both in terms of surprise as well as the frisson that it sent through much of the population. Associated by some with a time of stability, “Baby Doc” Duvalier was more commonly known for the brutal legacy he continued in his father’s footsteps. […]

This week, the president of Tunisia, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled the country amid massive demonstrations against his administration’s authoritarianism and corruption. It was a success for those who believe that corruption should not be tolerated and corrupt officials should be driven from power. While the protests began after a single jobless youth set himself […]

Beginning this week, Odwalla plans to donate 10 cents from every purchase of Mango Tango Smoothies to the Haiti relief effort. The money is intended to promote training and better market access for Haiti’s mango farmers. “With the one-year anniversary of the earthquake upon us, we wanted to renew our commitment to the important reconstruction […]

Will the world’s newest nation be created today?

Interesting op-ed today in the Huffington Post concerning the new Congress and its plans for USAID. As an excerpt, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FLA), the incoming Republican chairwoman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, made it clear that cuts are coming in foreign aid budgets. She adds, “We must shift our foreign aid focus from […]

If I had to pick a phrase to describe the Global Health arena in 2010, I would choose “2 steps forward, 1 step back”.  With tightened purse strings, public health programs had hands tied in many ways; but on the research front, some of the breakthroughs were mind-blowing.  All in all, it was a year […]

It’s difficult to assess the impact of development aid in 2010- there has been a lot going on. The Millennium Development Goal summit yielded little, except further confirmation that China and India have been the driving forces behind the majority of progress toward what MDGs may be achievable, and much of Sub-Saharan Africa has fallen, […]

This just in from my colleague at PRI’s The World – a series called “Rationing Health: Who Lives?  Who Decides?”, airing on public radio and online starting tomorrow.  The series takes a look at four countries where different approaches to the distribution of healthcare have led to ethical dilemmas, including: South Africa – Rationing by Committee […]

The latest Wikileaks revelations are too extensive for any single person to have yet sifted through, and they pertain to so many aspects of foreign policy that it is difficult to know where to focus. Here are some of the highlights related to corruption. In the category of “I knew just as much simply by […]