Development

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad to start a two-day visit aimed at improving U.S./Pakistan relations and to solidify Pakistan’s support of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. A major part of Secretary Clinton’s strategy is a $500 million package in economic and development aid, particularly for hospitals, hydroelectric plants, and clean drinking water […]

I’ve been thinking a lot about a New York Times article from last November about land acquisition in Africa. At the time the article was published, I was nearing the end of a six-month stay in Ethiopia, where I was working for a Johns Hopkins affiliated NGO providing technical assistance to HIV/AIDS programs in the […]

Hello, everyone! My name is Keena Seyfarth and I’m thrilled to be blogging for the Foreign Policy Association on development aid. I have lived and worked in Africa for most of my life, and am currently in graduate school for a combination Masters degree in International Health and Humanitarian Assistance at the Bloomberg School of […]

Happy Mandela Day!  The UN has adopted July 18th as Mandela Day, described as a “global movement to take his life’s work into a new century and change our world for the better”.  The idea is to donate 67 minutes of your day to doing something good…in commemoration of the 67 years that Nelson Mandela […]

So I’m a bit jetlagged.  I’m watching Dan Pink’s entertainingly animated talk at the RSA from April, considering the implications for behaviour change and global health.  If human motivation is nuanced in the way that Pink argues, and our institutions are hardwired to consider only the most basic of our innate desires – what does […]

I’m in the US for a couple of weeks, visiting family and, importantly, experiencing the joys of speedier internet access.  What will I be watching?  First, I’ll be keeping up with the happenings in Vienna with the webcasts from the XVIII International AIDS Conference.  I’ll also be catching up on the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival Global Health track by browsing the video […]

UNAIDS has released a report in advance of this week’s XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna with the title “Young People are Leading the HIV Prevention Revolution“.  The study says: The report shows that for the first time reductions in HIV prevalence among young people have coincided with a change in sexual behaviour patterns among people.  The […]

Princeton Lyman and Stephen Wittels of the Council on Foreign Relations have written a thoughtful article in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs (No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The Unintended Consequences of Washington’s HIV/AIDS Programs).  Far less sensationalist than the NYTimes reporting in May, this in-depth analysis explores the paradox that US commitments supporting HIV […]

The WHO has launched the Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities, an effort to link cities who “address the environmental and social factors that contribute to active and health ageing in societies.”  This is in response to statistics cited on the WHO site, including: (1) In 2000, more than 600 million people in the world were […]

On Thursday, two new studies were released in the journal, Science, showcasing promising new discoveries in the search for an HIV vaccine.  These studies follow a vaccine trial in Thailand last year, which was the first vaccine to show any efficacy, but with low results.  These latest findings center around “broadly neutralizing antibodies”, which have been shown to neutralize more than 90% […]

Two scientists in South Africa are calling for a month-long period of abstinence, to break the cycle of HIV transmission.  Alan Whiteside of the University of Whiteside, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, is quoted as saying: “This kind of initiative could provide hyper-endemic countries with a one-off, short-term adaptation that is cost-effective, easy to monitor […]

Steven Chapman at Population Services International (PSI) has written a thoughtful piece on PSI’s approach to sustainability.  He comments: More than 10 years ago, PSI published its first position statement on sustainability – distancing itself from the almost exclusive focus on financial sustainability used by other social marketing organizations. Instead, we emphasized producing health and quality-of-life benefits at […]