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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
In the early days of the New Year, i find myself looking into some of the background documents for the upcoming Executive Board (EB) meeting of WHO later this month, EB 142. After the last special Board meeting in November 2017 (EBSS4), where WHO’s new DG Dr. Tedros discussed a (revised) draft version of WHO’s ambitious 13th Global Program...
The weekly International Health Policies (IHP) newsletter is a flagship (knowledge management) activity of the IHP network, funded by DGD. The network aims to “empower committed groups of global health experts based in the South through innovative collaborative models allowing them to have greater control on policy and implementation knowled...
Last week at the UHC Forum 2017 in Tokyo, the Health Systems Governance Collaborative and the UHC Partnership launched the Bold Moves Campaign and issued a manifesto calling for a “radical rethink” of governance and collaboration strategies. Emboldened and inspired by the manifesto, we decided right away to answer the call, and spin some ide...
In 2013, The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health showed that a ‘Grand Convergence in global health’ was possible by 2035, i.e. “within one generation”, by boosting focused health sector investments. Infectious, child & maternal deaths can all be reduced to the levels of the best-performing middle-income countries by then, was the me...
It’s Thursday evening in Tokyo and the High Level session of the UHC Forum just closed, with Japanese calligraphy celebrating the ‘Health for All’ slogan. Over the last days,” Tedros” and “Jim” were at the centre of events, applauded as popstars, framed by a different celebrity ‘band’ at each session: Secretary General Gutierre...
On the 12th of December 2012, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for all nations to provide affordable and quality health care for all their citizens. Since then, December 12 has been designated the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day. This year, to mark the fifth anniversary of this important resolution, various groups have organise...
I always had trouble convincing my friends from the North how important an issue like responsiveness of human resources for health (HRH) is. I understand, though, it is very difficult for them to assess news articles like ‘Is there a cure for bad behavior: the toxic demeanor of many Bangladeshi doctors is a disease unto itself’, or ‘Patien...
This morning, I learnt from a somewhat similar-minded but slightly older colleague that the School of Life has ‘cheerful despair’ badges. They seem to sell well in our times. On a chilly December day like today, I tend to think we could use a few of these in global health as well. Indeed, our world has become so unpredictable and looks so d...
Earlier this month, I was shocked to see a headline in a leading national newspaper stating how a recent doctors’ strike against the proposed medical establishment amendment bill in Karnataka had resulted in the death of six patients. Karnataka, one of the southern states in India, was first in the country when it announced its plan of rolli...