Maternal health gets a lot of attention. It’s been marked as a priority by donors ranging from the UK Government to the Gates Foundation, and it’s been accepted as one of the areas of global health we actually know how to address.
I have a column up on The Guardian's website, arguing that the international community's capacity to cope with the world's humanitarian crises is crippled by an ever-widening funding gap
Has the international community been too slow to respond to Pakistan's epic floods?
With bridges destroyed and a shortage of helicopters, the relief effort turns on makeshift rafts to ferry humanitarian supplies across the Swat river. Check out this video from the UN Refugee Agency.
French president Sarkozy has always been known for his unforgiving stance on immigration and security issues: the fact that these two vast sets of policy issues are connected in his mind underscores Sarkozy's tendency to merge the narratives around crime and immigration. In recent weeks, however, a controversial policy which targets the Roma - gypsies, as they are sometimes called, who hail primarily from Romania and Bulgaria, two relatively new EU member states - for deportation has been stirring the debate.
UN Foundation Founder (and UN-designated "anti-poverty superhero") Ted Turner cuts a PSA for the Millennium Development Goals.
One of the most anticipated moments during the UN summit coming up later this month is a meeting on on maternal and child health, taking place on Wednesday the 22. It probably won’t draw the same amount of media attention as predicable rants by various global despots, but it holds more potential to change the lives of millions of the most vulnerable people around the world than any UN meeting in a long time.
JUBA, Sudan—The sun was setting at the standard Equatorial time of just after 7pm, and I was bumping along a potholed road with my trusted motorcycle taxi. Another day in Juba beginning to draw to a close. Then, my driver Issa said to me over his shoulder, “Do you have any good news from today?” This is not the first time in the 11 months that I have known Issa that he has said something to me that has struck me as powerful, insightful, or simply startling in its honesty.
Hillary Clinton delivered a sweeping speech on American global leadership earlier today at the Council on Foreign Relations. There is a lot of love for the UN in there. The following excerpt appeared under the sub-heading: "Global Institutions for the 21st Century."
Effective institutions are just as crucial at a global level, where the challenges are even more complex and the partners even more diverse.
The biggest screen in Times Square is playing PSA's on the Millennium Development goals between now and the UN Summit in two weeks. Our friends at the UN Foundation pass along this announcement.