News and blog

SarahBoseley'sGlobalHealthBlog, Guardian.co.uk USAID's magazine Frontlines is running a long and interesting interview with World Health Organisation Director General, Margaret Chan in which she talks about the need to have both disease-fighting strategies - the battle against Aids is the obvious example - and also health system...

Tom Wallace, ONE Blog The French news publication, Le Monde Diplomatique, recently published a map showing major infrastructure, particularly energy, in Africa. Read more....

PovertyMatters Blog, Guardian.co.uk Job creation and retention is a central political strategy for most rich countries, but employment has been surprisingly absent from development thinking. Until now. A recent survey in sub-Saharan Africa on development objectives found that providing jobs for young people was considered more important...

Steve Landry, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Pneumococcal disease, a bacterial infection, is the most common cause of pneumonia. Pneumonia is the leading killer of children under five in Yemen, accounting for almost one-quarter of the country’s infant deaths. The disease takes its highest toll among the...

Kofi Annan, Huffington Post We are witnessing a historic change to the development paradigm. Drastic spending cuts in the United States, uncertainty around Europe's common currency and the consequences of the earthquake in Japan are reordering international priorities and put further pressure on aid budgets. At...

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation U.N. officials, recognizing the International Day of the Midwife on Thursday, lauded the efforts of midwives worldwide and "called for greater investment to ensure their life-saving services are available to all who need them around the world," the U.N. News...

Ken Patterson, Citizen-Times.com When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, I rarely met a woman in her 30s who hadn't lost one, two or three children in the early years of life. And Biba's baby, from next door, died in my arms as I...

The Seattle Times I was thrilled to learn that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, announced that the Novartis drug Afinitor (Everolimus) has been approved for the treatment of advanced pancreatic-neuroendocrine tumors [“Medical digest,” News, April 13]. Pancreatic-neuroendocrine tumors make up less than 5 percent of...

Kristi York Wooten, Huffington Post A new promotional video released last week by the non-partisan anti-poverty organization ONE raises some important questions about Americans' view of foreign assistance in the developing world, namely how money sent to Africa should be spent. The clip (see below) called "Why...