Dear Colleagues,
Sadly, the world cup football is coming to a close. Without our daily dose of football, summer evenings just won’t be the same anymore. There’s still the final though, scheduled for Sunday. Our Dutch colleagues will object, but we definitely want Iniesta and co to win this tournament. The Dutch probably deserved it in the past, but not now. They might still prove us all wrong in the final, however.
Four years ago, Kofi Annan already wondered why people do not care as much about MDGs as they do about the so called ‘beautiful game’. If only we knew. Kate Darlington still wonders, but doesn’t think the UN should envy the world cup.
And there’s more than football this month. Some of us will participate in the International AIDS Conference in < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
Enjoy your reading.
Global health
1. Global Health Europe – The G8 and global health: getting hip with the times
David Gleicher ; Global Health Europe’s blog
Gleicher wants the G8 to make health an issue of social justice. “A social justice approach to global health could move our actions from coping with, to stemming the challenges where they originate.”
2. NYT – India Expands Role as Drug Producer
A few days ago, this New York Times article zeroed in on
3. Progress in Rwanda ‘s drive to slow population growth
Nick Wadhams ; Full Text
Nick Wadhams reports on the clever decision by the
4. Health Affairs – Finding Affordable Health Workforce Targets In Low-Income Nations
Thomas J. Bossert and Tomoko Ono; http://content.healthaffairs.org/
Bossert and Ono criticize the WHO minimum HR target, put forward by the institution to raise the awareness of the global HR crisis. They suggest another way of assessing needs starting from the financial constraints of a given country.
AIDS financing
5. Reuters interview with WHO HIV/AIDS chief: need for efficiency
In the run-up to the AIDS conference, Reuters interviewed Gottfried Hirnschall, the new director of HIV/AIDS at WHO. His key message was: better use of current funds is needed. He sketches a number of ways to do that.
6. United States global health policy: HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, and The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)
Sarah C. Leeper, and Anand Reddi; Abstract or PDF
Leeper and Reddi attack the Obama Administration plan to shift resources to maternal and child health at the expense of HIV/AIDS treatment scale-up. They argue that such a shift would actually undermine the health of women and children around the globe, instead of improving it.
7. Foreign Affairs – No good deed goes unpunished
In this Foreign Affairs article, Lyman & Wittels claim that the
Mead Over comments on this FA article in a blog post. He agrees with a number of points made in the article, but differs in two respects.
Aid effectiveness
8. BMJ (news) – Glut of aid agencies is hindering efforts to reduce poverty and poor health
Zarocostas J.; http://www.bmj.com/
A new UN report says that the proliferation of aid agencies, donors, and projects is fragmenting the global aid system, increasing transaction costs, and weakening efforts to reduce poverty and poor health. The report also recommends that in the future all aid donations should be disbursed through general budget support.
9. ODI (blog) – General budget support and the Millennium Development Goals
Heidi Tavakoli; http://blogs.odi.org.uk/
This blog post refers to a recent paper from Beynon et al. on ‘Budget Support and MDG performance’, and says it’s a welcome start of a much needed research agenda.
10. Owen (blog post) – Trillions of dollars of aid ?
Owen Barder; http://www.owen.org/
Owen tears apart the claim of the aid sceptics on ‘trillions of dollars’ supposedly spent on aid to
11. Global Health Europe – What’s Next for G20 in Global Health and Development?: Chatham House
Graham Lister; Global Health Europe’s blog
Graham Lister reports on a Chatham House meeting that reflected on the future role of G8 and G20 in global development and health. It turned out to be a sobering exercise. “G8 will remain an important focus for the global health and development agenda. G20 is unlikely to address human rights, health is unlikely to be central to its agenda, …”
Health research
12. Health Research Policy and Systems – What can global health institutions do to help strengthen health systems in low income countries ?
Dina Balabanova, Martin McKee, Anne Mills, Gill Walt, Andy Haines; Abstract or Draft PDF ahead of print (64Kb).
This recent paper provides some detail on how health systems support to recipient countries should be implemented. Five key actions are put forward.
13. Improving Implementation: Building Research Capacity in Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Health in Africa
James Whitworth, Nelson K. Sewankambo, Valerie A. Snewin; http://www.plosmedicine.org/
As part of a series on maternal, neonatal, and child health in sub-Saharan Africa, Whitworth and colleagues discuss the implementation gap and suggest research capacity in
14. Measuring impact in the Millennium Development Goal era and beyond: a new approach to large-scale effectiveness evaluations
Cesar G Victora, Robert E Black, J Ties Boerma, Jennifer Bryce;http://www.thelancet.com/
Victora et al. argue that the old way of assessing multiple interventions programmes does not work anymore. You can no longer compare an intervention area with a non intervention area as many programmes are simultaneously being scaled up in pretty much every district in the world. This is stating the obvious, so to speak. They propose a new way of doing evaluation, a national platform approach. The approach was already tested in