The influential global health scholar, Ilona Kickbusch writes and thinks a lot about “gridlock” in global health governance; living in strike-plagued Brussels these days is helping me to experience first- hand the implications of gridlock. When I decided to attend the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Forum 20...

 I wasn’t quite sure whether to celebrate or mourn the inclusion of road safety as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), and more recently on the agenda of the recent 69th World Health Assembly in Geneva. I enjoy both driving and walking – though Delhi’s roads are getting increasingly hostile towards pedestrians – and it’s safe to say...

I come from Aotearoa/New Zealand, so it wasn’t till I came to ITM that I heard the term “South” referenced as a synonym for Poor/ Low Income/ Developing/ Not Europe. I am from the deepest South. But unlike many other countries in the Global South, New Zealand is not a poor country. It does have one thing in common with most of the others t...

As a Belgian citizen, I only follow the Brexit debate & US election campaign from a distance, I admit. Still, apart from the haircut of some of the protagonists, I see at least one other important similarity between these two high-profile political battles: too many people on the left will once again “settle” for the so called lesser evil, a...

Last week, my Facebook newsfeed was flooded with posts from friends and colleagues about the practice of public health in the Philippines and abroad. On one hand, my fellow Filipino friend Harvy Joy Liwanag, who is doing his PhD at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, noted in his FB wall the lack of ‘an influential group to represe...

This time, last year I logged on to WHO’s website to catch the proceedings of the 68th  World Health Assembly (WHA) online; I never in my wildest dream expected to find myself at the WHA69 in person! And yet, here I am, attending the WHA as an IHP Correspondent, navigating a calendar packed with more events and discussions than one can humanl...

The World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization (WHO) is meeting this week in Geneva for the 69th time, with a thematic focus on the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 agenda. Over 3500 delegates from WHO’s 194 member countries are there. In addition to a large proportion of the world’s ministers of hea...

Going through information on the previous editions of Women Deliver, I recall being awestruck by the list of speakers, number of female participants and the types of issues discussed; I must say the #WD2016 conference has lived up to my expectations. Women Deliver began in 2007 as a global conference to address maternal mortality. This fourth ...

Gulp, clears throat! I suppose I should be the last person to write on this, I’m probably still too young, starry-eyed and shy (yes we all have that shy gene and I don’t think it ever goes away!). I recall meeting several high-profiled people when I was much younger, well and recently, and let’s just say that I was more star-struck than an...