Next month, Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH), Kampala, Uganda and Nottingham Trent University (NTU), UK in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH), Uganda are organising a symposium on the contribution of Community Health Workers (CHWs) to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The symposium will ...

Despite recent positive rhetoric by the IMF, WB and the EC to reform conditionality policies, a gap persists between the declared intentions and the general practice. It is time for the three institutions to turn the rhetoric into reality.   The mandates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) include the obligation to f...

 A personal reflection on the EV4GH 2016 program   First Off, young energy, a diverse group of participants, and emotions The stage had been set: early November 2016, the Emerging Voices for Global Health 2016 (EV4GH)  program reached Vancouver, to train before the fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR 2016). The EV4GH progra...

During the Emerging Voices for Global Health (EV4GH) 2016 training and the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR 2016) in Vancouver, scholars discussed the inequities in health systems across the globe and deliberated the power and politics involved in structuring (or hampering) a just system. Empirically, several sessions expl...

I hate to say it, but the “president-elect” will soon be the real president of the US.  Can’t wait. So, while I, in line with many others in the ‘la la liberal’ world, await the climate disaster and nuclear Armageddon that might accompany Trump’s first (and hopefully also last) term, here are some tips and tricks for surviving the n...

A dramatic 2016 is finally over. In Venezuela, the year brought with it sinking health and social indicators, and 2017 does not bode well either. Previously-eradicated diseases such as malaria and diphtheria have resurfaced. Maternal and pediatric healthcare services are steadily collapsing, and malnourishment among children is on the rise. The ...

As 2016 came to an end, I was taking stock of notes I took through meetings and conferences I attended, including the Emerging Voices in Global Health 2016 training program preceding the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research 2016 in Vancouver. I came across quite a few ‘quotable quotes’: “seize the smaller opportunities you get, you ...

Google’s “See what the world searched for in 2016” says it all: how has the year 2016 been so far for all of us? Four out of five of the top most trending global news searches relate to disasters – until we started talking about the Rio Olympics. I like the quote there, though, “love is out there”, and on a personal note I’d like to ...

In 2006, Al Gore brought out “An Inconvenient Truth”, and back then, George W Bush, sort of a climate change denier, was the President of the US. In 2016, we saw a passionate appeal by Leonardo DiCaprio through “Beyond the Flood”, and now we will have Donald Trump, clearly a climate change denier, as the next US President. Mr DiCaprio co...