Tucked away in the Eastern Himalayas between China and India, Bhutan is quietly leading by example in areas the global health community continues to debate – climate resilience, commercial  and social determinants of health, and health promotion. Unlike louder voices on international platforms, Bhutan rarely makes headlines, but it certainly des...

The fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) got underway in Sevilla, Spain on the 30th June amid warnings of extreme heat. And indeed by Tuesday afternoon the temperatures were hitting 44 degrees and the five kilometers from the venue to my hotel suddenly seemed a very long way to travel!  While the heatwave made the ...

Across most Universities, students are perceived as recipients of instructions – they are taught, tested and certified. But the Planetary Health Report Card (PHRC), founded in 2019, flips this dynamic. Students like Abdulsalam from Usman Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS) in Nigeria, are now leading a structured needs assessment of their univers...

“Do we have any right to quality healthcare, or is it only for others? We feel like we are left behind…” Sulaifa’s voice trembled as she spoke, her eyes filled with quiet resilience and deep sorrow. A Sudanese refugee and a single mother, she had fled to Egypt after conflict shattered her home, taking the life of her husband and leaving...

The rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as a counterweight to waning Western influence is reshaping the global health field. As is well acknowledged now, the past decade marked the transition to a multipolar world, with clear emerging leaders being the BRICS nations who achieved massive economic development througho...

Hundreds of doctors in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRG) staged a demonstration on June 3, 2025, in front of the Council of Ministers’ office in Erbil and other cities, protesting the government’s failure to employ newly graduated doctors, delayed salaries for public sector doctors, and the Health Ministry’s refusal to facilitate professi...

There is a sickness. It spreads quietly. It manifests in boardrooms, ministries, meetings and homes. It threatens healthcare, the economy and social futures of countries. Its name is corruption. This art-based op-ed explores this disease through both analysis and art—specifically, a painting to visualize corruption as a systemic illness in the...

The world was still amidst the making of new year’s resolutions when it was hit with the shocking news of the withdrawal of more than 90% USAID foreign assistance on January 20, 2025. At first, we thought Trump was just having a laugh and pulling the world’s leg with one of his classic bad taste jokes, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a...

Global health financing has entered a new reality, marked by drastic funding cuts from the US Government particularly under the renewed “America First” agenda of the Trump 2.0 era and a steady withdrawal of support from several donors over recent years. Development assistance for health already fell by 23.1% between 2021 and 2023, with 18 of 31 ...