One year ago, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. So one year on, what’s been done and what still has to be done? According to the secretary general, we are delivering “on all fronts”, and figures published just hours before the Every Woman Every Child event to mark the anniversary seem to back up his belief.

To mark Human Rights Day (10 December), Action for Global Health and ActionAid India have launched a new video which shows how communities of a remote area of Orissa in south-eastern India stand up for their right to health. India is a vast country with diverse culture, traditions and government structures, and its growing population already [...]

How is it possible that a disease can kill more than 1.5 million tiny children every year and that hardly anybody knows about it? Even more astonishing is the fact that a million of these deaths could be prevented by simple interventions that already exist. Pneumonia is the largest killer of children under five, but [...]

Unfortunately we didn’t get to be in the room when world leaders pledged their commitments to the UN Secretary General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, but watching it by live feed from the bloggers’ lounge definitely gave it the feeling of a climactic moment to this week in New York. That was because [...]

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 [...]