In donor countries we can take an aspirin for a headache: a ‘luxury’ most of Africa and swathes of Asia still do not have. It is this persistent and ‘inexplicable’ unfairness which must make the health MDGs a top priority for heads of State at the MDG Summit in September. This is the view of [...]

What do free healthcare clinics in Sierra Leone have in common with iPads? Funnily enough, not a great deal apart from novelty and a mutual ability to attract excited crowds who will queue patiently for hours in the hope of getting close to one. Strictly speaking, universal healthcare in Sierra Leone isn’t actually a new [...]

A couple of weeks ago I caught up with Jeffrey Sachs at the World Health Assembly in Geneva. He made a short statement for us which we recorded and blogged about here. In it Professor Sachs repeated his well known view that there is ‘no better investment’ for rich countries than to ringfence 0.1% of [...]

European Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs welcomes CONCORD Aidwatch Report 2010 released today (10th June). The report entitled “More and Better EU aid can score Millennium Development Goals” features an EU-wide assessment of progress on aid quantity and quality, and a country-by-country report on how each Member State is progressing towards their 2010 individual intermediate [...]

While visiting a district hospital about an hour outside of Dar es Salaam we spoke to the district AIDS coordinator, who spoke about the importance of integrating HIV and AIDS services into the services of the hospital as it doesn’t make sense for people to have to visit different facilities. As you can see from [...]

It’s our third straight day of nonstop rain and all the Tanzanians are saying that it never rains like this without letting up at some point. Nonetheless, I seem to be the only one surprised when the streets flood: everyone else just gets on with it and wades through the deluge. This morning we’ve been [...]