Catholics make up 24% and 45% of the Kenyan and Ugandan populations respectively. Recently the two East African neighbours were honoured by a visit from the Pontiff, on his first African visit (25-29 November) – the last leg of his brief African journey was Central African Republic (30 November). In this blog I will just focus on the pope’s vi...

I usually tend to see the glass half full; even my Twitter profile says so. Yet, if I look at maternal and neonatal health after 15 years of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) I can’t help but stare across the empty top end of the glass. The 57th ITM Colloquium on Maternal and Neonatal Health in Rabat (24-27 November 2015), co-organised by IT...

Not long ago, in an article published on the IHP website by one of its collaborators, Werner Soors, ‘A lexicon and a question’, it was asked whether it really made sense to differentiate between the social determinants of health (SDH) and the social determination of health approach. The article was based on a critical analysis of our article...

  “We, researchers from the North, need to be humble and generous. However these values are not taught in our universities. So how can we be generous in partnerships if we need to compete with one another?”  (Muriel Mac-Seing, PhD student, University of Montreal)   Over 630 participants from 46 different countries met last week in Montreal at t...

On November 22 the Argentinian people will elect their next president. The dispute is between Daniel Scioli, the candidate from the current government, and Mauricio Macri, the former major of Buenos Aires city who represents the opposition. The election has created great expectations, anxiety and even fear, not only among Argentines but also in ...

In August this year, Amnesty International (AI) took an important stand to promote and protect human rights by endorsing an internal policy to support the decriminalisation of sex work. In the lead up to this decision, public debate on the buying and selling of sex raged on in a battle of open letters and online petitions, praising and condemnin...

      Policy-making for NCDs: riddled with conflicts and contestation The rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) globally has turned the policy makers’ attention towards regulating some of the common ‘risk’ products including tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods rich in sugar, salt and harmful fats. Consumption of these pr...

Sometimes, the more things change, the more they remain the same. This is particularly true of India’s health sector where in the past decade important public investments have been made, yet, it seems like little has changed. Two major developments have characterized India’s health system in the past ten years, which in many ways marked a ne...

The path to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is difficult for any country, but especially so for one such as India – a country struggling to provide even basic, essential care to its people; a  country where, even as UHC is exhibited as being a top priority, it risks being just a mirage.   Despite large improvements in recent years, basic heal...