On April 20th afternoon, I decided to join one of the peaceful protests in my country. We marched approximately 2 km towards the cathedral in Managua, waving Nicaraguan flags, banging pans and pots or whatever could make noise, and yelling out loud “We’re not afraid anymore!”. We were protesting against the social security reforms announce...

Getting an internship with the World Health Organisation (WHO) was a very exciting opportunity for me. Prior to coming to Geneva, I started doing my research as to what working at WHO would entail. During my research, I stumbled across pictures of interns demonstrating outside the United Nations (UN) building carrying placards that read “Unpai...

Caveat lector! The author of these 907 words is a socialist, and dislikes doublespeak. I hope this warning makes you read on as it explains my ambivalent feelings whenever the World Bank speaks out on poverty, inequity, exclusion, or people at large. It all started with the World Development Report 1980, part II: Poverty and Human Development, i...

Doctor Shayan Askary was one the many doctors who decided to boycott work and demand better working conditions through a protest that started on 25 March  2018, in the streets of Erbil in Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRI). What she and her colleagues did not expect was the violence encountered from the authorities refusing to respond to their dema...

In South Africa (SA), just like in most other parts of the world, there are many challenges. You probably have an idea if you read a newspaper from time to time. There’s a lot of political and economic instability, and you probably also heard about Cape Town’s water predicament recently. In addition, even after policy reforms aimed at reduci...

As many of you know, one of the perennial questions around the ‘Emerging Voices’ venture is this one: when are you actually ‘Emerged’?  (+ grin) I don’t have a clue – feeling at times closer to a Drowning/Imploding Voice, especially on Friday mornings – but nevertheless thought it might be good to speculate a bit, even we all agre...

A recent article by my friend and editor-in chief of BMJ Global Health, Seye Abimbola, on the North/South framing for development and health resonates more than ever. At the core of the development story is its history of conquest and domination, with colonial rulers helping themselves to cheap labour and natural resources. It has evolved, of co...

Lower Middle Income Countries (LMICs) are experiencing a health workforce crisis. In the Nigerian context, one of the underlying problems is disharmony and unhealthy rivalry among health professionals and this has contributed to the dysfunction of the health system. Yet, effective teamwork among health professionals is recognised as an essential...

Last week I attended the launch of the Global Health Watch 5 in Brussels. The launch (on 29 March) was a joint event organised by the working group “Determinants of International Health”, a group that has regular meetings, organizes events, writes contributions for international events, and publishes documents. Organisations involved this ti...