From 22-23 June 2015, approximately two dozen emerging leaders from across West Africa in research, academia, health ministries and civil society gathered at the University of Ghana School of Public Health to discuss, debate and dream about the growing field of health policy and systems (HPS) in the region, and their place in it. Nine countries ...

Dear readers, if you are only interested in global health, this post is probably not for you. But if you have been following the Greek crisis more or less closely, and you feel that the logic behind it has been escaping you, read on.  Be aware though that this post will leave you with more questions than answers. Creditors have been imposing au...

It’s interesting to see how even in a left-leaning institution like ITM,  people have very different views on the Greek crisis, aka ”The Endgame”, as it is now called: from the almost rational to conspiracy thinking & the nearly paranoid. The fact that it’s extremely hard these days to distinguish between these extremes shows the sorry ...

This week, I spent 2 days reading The Great Escape: health, wealth and the origins of inequality.  In this masterpiece, one of Bloomberg/Businessweek Best Books of 2013 (I only now managed to read it, shame on me!), Angus Deaton tells a compelling and extraordinary story of how humanity got healthy and wealthy, and why some people got so much h...

(warning: push the Boris Johnson button in your brain before you read this) I just learnt that “Resilient and responsive health systems for a changing world” was chosen as the theme for the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, which will be held on November 14–18, 2016 in Vancouver, Canada. Great idea. Under the motto “Be ...

Sometimes even an Emerging Voice and Future Leader (hear me…) can feel a bit out of touch with our times. Now that many desperate people are trying to cross oceans and seas on very shabby boats, hoping for a better future, this January I embarked on the spectacular MSC Opera, a luxury cruise from the Cape of Storms to the stunning Namibian Des...

Recently we did a ‘targeted survey’ of the IHP newsletter among 100 subscribers we consider as more or less representative of the (multiple) target audiences we aim for with the weekly IHP newsletter.  The response rate was more than decent (47 out of 100 filled in the survey). By now we duly wrote a proper, short & “action-oriented” re...

All nations are currently working (hard, we hope) towards a new global climate change agreement which will hopefully materialize at the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in December this year. France will host COP 21, which is why the all-important meeting is also...

These are interesting times in India, no doubt. Our new prime minister, Narendra Modi is ensuring that India’s global reputation as a progressive, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society with a rich history is not tarnished by several recent reports of sexual violence on women or inter-religious conflict. Immediately after assuming office abou...