Last Saturday (26 May), the very last (side-)event of the World Health Assembly in Geneva was about one of the most embarrassing challenges in international health work: “#AidToo: Sexual exploitation in international cooperation”. #AidToo is a sub-section of the #MeToo movement which definitely needs no introduction, as the ripples it has ca...

The incidents around the perimeters of the Gaza fence, which separates the area from Israel, have led to more than 12,000 Palestinians being injured, and a further 110 unarmed people dying. Reactions have ranged from outrage to blaming the Palestinians for their victimhood, echoing the old and well-known statement of the late Israeli Prime Minis...

Almost right after the Alma Ata declaration forty years ago, health started being treated (again) as a problem in search of technical solutions: good policies, drugs, reformed financial markets, …. When correctly mixed as prescribed, results are down mostly to implementation, was the predominant message, in spite of the (just agreed upon) Alma...

Last week, in the run-up to the 71st World Health Assembly (WHA), the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2) organized an excellent workshop on “40 years of the Alma-Ata: Translating Health for All into the Present and Future”, bringing together academics and civil society organizations from around the world.  We can only hope that the ideas discu...

Growing up in a rural area is different from growing up in the cities. I was born and raised in a rural village of South Africa (SA), in Nzhelele, where life was a routine, as you saw the same people over and over again. There were two primary schools, one high school and one clinic. Living in a small village wasn’t always easy, though. I felt...

At the launch of the fifth Global Health Watch  a short time ago in Brussels, planetary health and justice were very much in my thoughts. This is where health meets ecology. Some 20 years ago, the home base of the Global Health Watch, People’s Health Movement, was founded by grassroots health activists, civil society organizations and academ...

In the next few months, Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world, is expected to undergo the second democratic transition in its 70- year history. Elections are expected to be held in August 2018 and politicians have already begun holding public rallies as a run up for their election campaigns. Political parties are gearing up to a...

On April 20th afternoon, I decided to join one of the peaceful protests in my country. We marched approximately 2 km towards the cathedral in Managua, waving Nicaraguan flags, banging pans and pots or whatever could make noise, and yelling out loud “We’re not afraid anymore!”. We were protesting against the social security reforms announce...

Getting an internship with the World Health Organisation (WHO) was a very exciting opportunity for me. Prior to coming to Geneva, I started doing my research as to what working at WHO would entail. During my research, I stumbled across pictures of interns demonstrating outside the United Nations (UN) building carrying placards that read “Unpai...