On 25 September, world leaders will gather at the United Nations for the Fourth High-Level Meeting on Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs). It comes at a pivotal moment: funding for global health has plummeted, while NCDs like heart disease, cancer and diabetes continue to claim 75% of all lives lost worldwide. This amid recent efforts to water […] Continue reading ->
In a 4 September message, the WHO/HQ Staff Association called for an Extraordinary General Assembly (EGA), now due to take place on Monday, 22 September. The message acknowledged what many staff were feeling: profound change, deep uncertainty, and a heavy personal and professional toll. Their statement flagged key concerns raised by many WHO staff about […] Continue reading ->
The key to managing diabetes, one of the world’s most prevalent non-communicable diseases (NCDs), lies more in self-care skills than pills. Leaders meeting at the United Nations next month to decide on how to address NCDs need to take note. In 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the number of people living with […] Continue reading ->
There is mounting rage amongst World Health Organization’s (WHO) staff about planned workforce reductions, as new financial data suggests that low- and mid-level personnel are bearing the brunt of cuts—while high-ranking executives, whose real costs far exceed their published salaries, remain largely protected. In an email to WHO staff last week, WHO Director General Dr […] Continue reading ->
In the face of a financial crisis and converging health challenges, the Lusaka meeting is an opportunity for WHO AFRO and Health Ministers to show they can look beyond technical resolutions to address systemic issues The seventy-fifth session of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional committee for Africa (RC75) will open in Lusaka on Monday […] Continue reading ->
Thinking back to five years ago, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was living around the corner from the Brooklyn Hospital Center. Each day, I’d take a walk through the neighborhood, but those walks became hauntingly different as I started passing refrigerated trucks parked outside – temporary morgues, there to handle the overwhelming […] Continue reading ->
Amid protests over the weakening of the political declaration for the UN High Level Meeting on NCDs, one huge issue was omitted from the start: oral health. As United Nations (UN) Member States navigate negotiations for the political declaration of the 2025 United Nations (UN) High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs), a familiar and […] Continue reading ->
As health actors meet this week in Brasilia to refine a Health Action Plan for COP30, ending relationships with PR firms that engage with fossil fuel producers is one concrete step both civil society and UN actors could take now, two leading global health actors argue. The call is the more urgent in light of […] Continue reading ->
LONDON – Summit it was not as there were no heads of state or even Bill Gates, although the UK’s Minister for Climate Change made a compelling presentation showing the kind of policy leadership starkly absent in the United States. Even so, the recent Climate and Health Summit, hosted by the UK Physiological Society, the […] Continue reading ->
As negotiators prepare to meet in Geneva, 5-14 August in yet another attempt to finalize the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty addressing a pollution crisis affecting oceans and ecosystems worldwide – a critical linkage between health and environment governance seems to be largely missing from the draft text. After nearly three years of negotiations, the […] Continue reading ->