“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...

It’s over a year now since the third global symposium on health systems research took place in Cape Town. At the symposium, the science and practice of people-centred health systems took center stage. Almost 2000 participants represented 125 countries in Cape Town, so it clearly was a global conference. The 2014 edition of the Emerging Voice...

So, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have finally been endorsed by world leaders and attention has shifted to what is arguably the more important event, the December Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP 21 ) at which countries will commit to a universal climate agreement. As a fan of Richard Horton (who isn’t?), I endorse the positi...

I’m just back from the 2015 World Health Summit (WHS) in a (rather cold) Berlin, and still recovering from a nasty cold. It was the first time I attended the event, so I’m perhaps not the best placed person to give you an overall account and/or comprehensive analysis of everything that happened between 11-13 October. So instead of doing that...