Over the past two decades, National AIDS Commissions (NACs) have been set up as the main organisation expected to lead, govern and coordinate national multi-sectoral AIDS responses.  Many countries have adopted a similar organisational ‘model’ to carry out this mandate: a high level multi-stakeholder governing body (the Commission or Counci...

There’s no escape these days – Band Aid (version 4) is back. I’m a big fan of the cheesy song, so I’m already wandering in the streets of Antwerp to my institute in the morning, humming  the old lyrics from 1984 – I’m stuck in time, I’m afraid. For a rather thorough deconstruction of the new and old lyrics, see this piece in the G...

Marsha Orgill, Sara Van Belle, Woldekidan Amde, Aku Kwamie, Thubelihle Mathole, Gaëlle Vareilles, Emilie Robert, Valeria Campos da Silveira and Bruno Marchal   The authors, members of the SHAPES cluster group on ‘theory-driven inquiry’ attended the 1st International Conference on Realist Approaches to Evaluation and Synthesis   in Liverpo...

A year after the strongest storm ever recorded to make landfall barreled through populated Visayan Islands in central Philippines, various humanitarian and aid agencies, local and international news organizations have all weighed in on the progress (or lack of progress) of reconstruction efforts. Many lament that very few families have  receive...

Dear colleagues, Ever wondered how journalistic writing is totally different from academic writing? Chances are you do when yet another of your policy briefs satisfies the agency that funded your research but doesn’t make any difference in the outer world. Reason to worry, if you pretend to belong to those “switching the poles in internation...

I’m not a big fan of causal loop diagrams – CLD paintings tend to make me as dizzy as the average Prezi presentation, perhaps my fast increasing brain age has something to do with it (it’s for a reason that I will read with special interest this week’s  Lancet Series on Aging).  But while waiting for the ultimate causal loop diagram of...

Unless tragic emergencies are unfolding – as it is sadly the case now in West Africa – little attention is given to fragile and post-conflict countries. Not only do donors contribute to fragile states 40% less aid than predicted given socio-economic indicators, researchers also quite often refrain from working on/in these contexts. It is only du...

Fahdi wrote this blog together with Vincent De Brouwere.   In many Arab countries, memories of the so called “Arab spring” are still very vivid. However, four years after large swathes of the Tunisian population took to the streets to claim more freedom and improved social justice, a new societal model is still to emerge. Substantial changes...

In December 2006, Gorik Ooms and colleagues argued that humanity may need some kind of “world health insurance” to realize the right to health. Concurring, Wim Van Damme added that it should take the form of a world social health insurance which strengthens health systems in low-income countries. In a nutshell, we argued for a Global Fund fo...