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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
Last week, I was in Abidjan, the ‘economic’ capital of the Ivory Coast. I was invited by the WHO to facilitate a dialogue on international health workforce mobility during an inter-sectoral consultation of policymakers and partners in Francophone countries. This consultation feeds into a UN High Level Commission on Health Employment and Ec...
Toilets, agriculture, sexual and reproductive health, smart cities – a lot can be packed into two days as we found out as participants to the European Development Days (EDD) 2016 in Brussels – one of the major events in Europe on international cooperation and development. Some even call it the EU’s “Davos of development”. “This eve...
As the full horror of the Orlando shootings unfolded, another story gained a slow and steady visibility in the media – the issue of blood donation. Not since Edward Cullen – the teenage heartthrob of the Twilight series – glided through the cafeteria doors of Forks High School, has the issue of blood received such attention, unfortunately ...
Many health outcomes indicators are worse for men than women but men’s health is often overlooked by global and national health organizations. In this blog, I argue that there is a strong ethical, economic and social case for new approaches that address the needs of men and justify their inclusion in the dialogue about the implementation of th...
“It falls to the health sector to show some principled ethical backbone in a world that, for all practical appearances, has lost its moral compass,” these powerful words spoken by Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, during her opening speech at the 69th World Health Assembly (WHA) continue to echo through my mind long after we r...
The influential global health scholar, Ilona Kickbusch writes and thinks a lot about “gridlock” in global health governance; living in strike-plagued Brussels these days is helping me to experience first- hand the implications of gridlock. When I decided to attend the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Forum 20...
I wasn’t quite sure whether to celebrate or mourn the inclusion of road safety as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), and more recently on the agenda of the recent 69th World Health Assembly in Geneva. I enjoy both driving and walking – though Delhi’s roads are getting increasingly hostile towards pedestrians – and it’s safe to say...
I come from Aotearoa/New Zealand, so it wasn’t till I came to ITM that I heard the term “South” referenced as a synonym for Poor/ Low Income/ Developing/ Not Europe. I am from the deepest South. But unlike many other countries in the Global South, New Zealand is not a poor country. It does have one thing in common with most of the others t...
As a Belgian citizen, I only follow the Brexit debate & US election campaign from a distance, I admit. Still, apart from the haircut of some of the protagonists, I see at least one other important similarity between these two high-profile political battles: too many people on the left will once again “settle” for the so called lesser evil, a...