Busan provides decision-makers with a key opportunity to make decisions which could make a huge difference to development and global health programmes. However, are developed countries and emerging economies really as committed as they say they are…?

This November provides decision-makers with two opportunities to make decisions which could make a huge difference to development and global health programmes. The first key moment is the G-20 summit in France (3-4 November) with the FTT high on the agenda. The second event is the 4th High Level Meeting on Aid Effectiveness which will take place in Busan (South Korea) at the end of the month.

Last June, world leaders met in New York at the UN High Level Meeting on AIDS to renew their effort to achieve universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support for HIV by 2015 under the slogan: “Intensifying our efforts to eliminate HIV and AIDS”. However in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo there is still lot to do around those issues. What has been done so far? Does everybody have access to prevention, treatment, care, and support for HIV according to the aim of the Universal Access?

I am a woman with two university degrees who went to a private though free school. My family did not receive means-tested benefits. Had I grown up where I live now, in the Borough of Southwark, London, my privileged start into life would put my life-expectancy up to seven years ahead of those who are at the bottom end of the social scale. Similarly, in Guatemala, the maternal mortality ratio among indigenous women is up to three times higher than for the rest of the population.