Fahdi Dkhimi (researcher in the Health Financing Unit of the Department of Public Health at ITM)   This week, the 10th World congress in Health Economics – organized jointly by the International Health Economists Association and the European Conference on Health Economics, gathered about 800 participants in Dublin around a promising thematic:...

Rachel Hammonds reflects on Monday’s half-day event at ODI exploring whether international aid can play a role in defending lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights in developing countries.   The 7 July Overseas Development Institute (ODI) conference addressing this issue was a lively, thought provoking event. The excellent chairing b...

This speech was given by professor Bart Criel (ITM) at the graduation ceremony of this year’s MPH students (July 3rd).   Dear Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, dear MPH graduates, This ceremony for the 50th anniversary of our Master of Public Health (MPH) course is a time to celebrate, to acknowledge the achievements of the course, to th...

What has gone wrong at WHO? The Lancet’s Offline report  (31 May)of what they call “WHO’s definitive statement about the future it envisions for the post-2015 era of sustainable development” signals a serious regression by WHO away from championing its own policies of many years, and makes for a distressing read. Among the policies WHO ...

The citizens of the Republic of Indonesia, a vast country with over 250 million inhabitants, have an important presidential election ahead of them on the 9th of July 2014. After 10 years of government under the current president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, next week’s election provides the voters with two distinct political options for the natio...

Maymouna Ba is a Research fellow at ‘Le Centre de Recherches sur les Politiques sociales’ (CREPOS), Dakar   The introduction of social health protection programmes in most of the low and middle Income Countries (LMICs) at the turn of the millennium was targeted at people identified as the outcasts of the implemented health financing strategies:...

By Arsène Kpangon (EV 2013) The World Young Doctors’ Organization (WYDO) was founded on 24 June 2011. It provides a forum for young doctors to share their ideas, concerns and experiences. The organization already counts members from 28 countries, according to its website. After last year’s inaugural World Young Doctors’ Day (WYDD),  with t...

By Thérèse Delvaux and Vincent De Brouwere (Woman & Child health research centre, ITM)   In 2011, the following summary kicked off the UNFPA report  “The State of the World’s Midwifery “, the first of its kind: “Increasing women’s access to quality midwifery services has become a focus of global efforts to realize the right of eve...

By Lara Gautier, global health researcher at the Institute of Public Health of Heidelberg University, PhD candidate at Université de Montréal Several scholars, development experts and commentators had great expectations that BRICS become important players of the post-2015 discussions. Given their demographic, economic, and political weight, th...