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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
I usually refrain from commenting on a terrible human tragedy, and the crash of a German Wings plane earlier this week is certainly one beyond comprehension. However, this time I make an exception, being triggered by what very much sounds like an experience of synchronicity by a (not so distant) family member of mine around the time of the crash...
The last year saw the re-emergence of a century-old economic idea, namely that investing in health is (good) value for money. The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (CIH), prompted by the 20th anniversary of the 1993 World Development Report, has argued that a Grand Convergence in health is possible by the year 2035. Global health 2035: a ...
There is quite some debate these days on whether the SDG agenda will turn out “transformative” or not, including in the health domain. Pundits differ (that’s why they’re called pundits), other observers say a paradigm shift is indispensable if real transformation and achievement of a broad agenda are to happen, and there is without any d...
The 20 KEYSTONE course participants are now back in their offices, campuses, clinics and research sites, scattered across India. They are beginning to digest the material presented over the two-week course (23 February to 5 March 2015), which began by asking “what is a policy?” and ended by examining the relationship between creating health ...
“Borders I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people” (Thor Heyrdahl ) An ecologist friend of mine sent me a paper from the mid-80s titled What is conservation biology by Michale E Soulé that sought to build (rather define) the (then) emerging discipline of conservation biology. Soulé frame...
Cambalache is the name of one of the most famous tango songs ever, composed during the world economic crisis in the 30s. A cambalache is a shop in which it is possible to buy almost anything and products are exposed in a rather chaotic way. The term is often used as a metaphor for the mess and loss of clear references in society in times of cris...
It struck me last weekend when I read an interview in a Belgian newspaper with Saskia Sassen, a well known sociologist. She recently wrote the book Expulsions: Brutality and complexity in the global economy (which is on my reading list, and probably should be on yours too). She argues in the book that what we are witnessing now, in the 21st ce...
A recent (online) film, ‘Under the Dome – investigating China’s smog’ examining severe air pollution in China and its causes, has gone viral in just a couple of days in my country. ‘Under the dome’ seems to have hit a nerve for many Chinese people and has attracted hundreds of millions of hits by now. Although the video has been take...
Till recently, I worked as a staff advisor to the Office of the Minister of Health in my country Costa Rica. “What does an advisor to the Minister actually do?” was a question I often got from friends and peers external to the Ministry. I always found it difficult to explain in a brief way what my duties were. Then one day someone asked me i...