Trump budget threatens drastic cuts to global health programs
The Lancet March 11, 2017
The Trump administration's proposal for massive cuts to foreign aid signals a substantial shift away from a US leadership role in global health. Note: Lancet articles require free registration.
Famine fears in Nigeria as Boko Haram fight rages
The Lancet January 28, 2017
More than 5 million people are going hungry in northeast Nigeria, while some areas are likely to have experienced famine. The risk of more famines remains high as large areas are cut off from aid. The “severity of the crisis is extreme” according to international food security analysts. Infectious diseases are also on the rise as health care remains inaccessible for millions.
Election see WHO's future role in question
Devex January 12, 2017
Ultimately, who leads WHO will have a consequential impact not just on the organization but on all of global health. At the same time, the incoming director-general will face significant constraints on her or his ability to reform the agency, which has both a notoriously sclerotic bureaucracy and a budget that is too small for its global mandate and overwhelmed with earmarks.
Can Cuban medicine help solve American inequality?
Medium:The Development Set March 14, 2016
Even with all of the new funding for global health these days, professional training remains one of the most critically underserved needs. Passing out emergency supplies is one thing; the multi-year intensive schooling needed to train physicians requires a whole different level of commitment.
The World Bank under Jim Kim
The Lancet July 25, 2015
Steering a new course for the World Bank, a 61-year-old institution dominated by economists, has proven to be especially difficult. Kim, who made his reputation providing medical care to poor people in places where the experts said it couldn't be done, is facing a new kind of challenge: not taking on an international bureaucracy, but running one.
Learning
from Failure
The New York Times: Sunday Review February 1, 2013
Mumbai, India and Cambridge, Mass.: Americans love success stories. But “success stories” are rarely the whole story. Last year an Obama administration official called on the aid community to adopt a “permanent campaign mind-set,” in which fund-raising and promotion are on the front burner. This creates an incentive to go for easy victories, highlight successes and bury failures. Even with the new fad in the aid world for metrics and impact assessments, their public reports are rarely forthcoming about missteps.
That’s bad science.
Easier than taking vitamins
The New York Times: Fixes September 5, 2012
Kisumu, Kenya and Cambridge, Mass.: An innovative method of fortifying food at home offers hope to the estimated 300 million children who suffer from anemia. But implementing even a seemingly straightforward public health intervention can be tricky.
Mapping Toilets in a Mumbai Slum Yields Unexpected Results
The New York Times: India Ink July 22, 2012
Mumbai, India: This January, a team of students
from the Harvard School of Public Health traveled to Mumbai, to work for three
weeks in one of the city's oldest slums, Cheeta Camp. They made a surprising
finding: there was only one toilet per 170 people. Nobody really knew where
they all were, who was running them, or even which ones worked. So they decided
to make a map.
The Famine Next Time
The New York Times November 26, 2011
Wajir, Kenya: This past summer I came across
a camel that had lost its hump. After a long journey in search of pasture,
the beast was swaying beside a brackish well, its ribs and hip bones showing.
I was in northern Kenya, which is suffering through the worst drought to hit
the Horn of Africa in 60 years. Unlike earthquakes or hurricanes, droughts and food price increases
take time to develop, and the resulting hunger crises are forecast well in
advance. From water harvesting to livestock support to cash assistance, there
are a plethora of steps that could have significantly ameliorated the current
crisis. Why weren’t they taken?
Escaping from Somalia's Famine into a Perilous Refuge
Time August 3, 2011
The Dadaab refugee camps, Kenya: Realizing that
we are lost, we park near a dried-out tree on the edge of the Hagadera refugee
camp, one of the three in the Dadaab complex in eastern Kenya, when a man
runs toward me shouting, urgently asking for help. ... The man, an aid worker
named Maash, tells me that a woman who has just given birth is hemorrhaging
and needs to get to a hospital right away.
Global food crisis takes heavy toll on east Africa
The Lancet July 2, 2011
An estimated 8·8 million people in east Africa are going hungry, and a sluggish international response is failing to address the growing crisis, which is approaching famine conditions in some areas. The USA, Europe, and other wealthy donors, despite warnings forecasting the crisis since late last year, have responded too little and too late, forcing international aid agencies to reduce emergency feeding programmes in the region.
A Perilous Journey: The mortal danger of poverty
The Economist June 24, 2010
Chiapas, Mexico: Outside the main hospital in San Cristóbal de las Casas, women in traditional multicoloured garb queue up to see a doctor. Many are pregnant or carry infants on their backs. One expectant mother says she fears there will not be a bed for her when she enters labour—all too common in the overcrowded hospital. Tales of deaths from hypertension, haemorrhage or infection during or after giving birth are common in the second city of the state of Chiapas. In a nearby village, one doctor recalls a woman whose journey took so long that she died on the street outside his clinic.
Malnutrition
in Guatemala: A national shame
The Economist August 27, 2009
Guatemala City: It is hardly one of Latin America’s poorest countries, but according to Unicef almost half of Guatemala’s children are chronically malnourished—the sixth-worst performance in the world. The chronic problem has become acute.
