Global health has moved from an area of mutual cooperation to one dominated by “high politics” and division, observed Ilona Kickbusch at the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) last Friday (2 October). Leading the closing panel, the founder of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, highlighted how recent voting at the […] Continue reading ->
Several significant pledges for global health – covering reproductive health, ‘transition’ and Ebola – were made on the fringes of last week’s United Nations General Assembly amid massive donor withdrawal from the sector. Reproductive health, which has suffered massive funding losses, got a $337.8 million boost from the United Kingdom, which announced its pledge at […] Continue reading ->
The Political Declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response was not approved by consensus by the United Nations General Assembly, and is likely to be put to a vote at a later stage on the UN calendar. Objections by the United States and a few other states appeared to block a consensus agreement on the […] Continue reading ->
The Ebola Bundibugyo virus outbreak is showing early signs of containment in the Ituri province in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where it first surfaced in April. But in North Kivu province, to the south, cases are still rising fast, with weekly cases nearly doubling over the past two weeks, […] Continue reading ->
Women’s organisations are anxious that Secretary-General António Guterres will push the controversial proposed merger of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Women at the UN General Assembly later this month. Guterres proposed the merger as part of his UN80 initiative, aimed at streamlining and cutting costs as the global body tries to recover from […] Continue reading ->
The United States and Russia were part of a group of eight countries that voted against the United Nations (UN) Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, which was adopted by 149 votes at the High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Tuesday afternoon. Israel, Burkina Faso, Burundi, North Korea, Niger and Senegal also voted against the declaration, while there were […] Continue reading ->
GENEVA — Hundreds of hours of formal negotiations and corridor-side bargaining in the halls of the United Nations (UN) Palais des Nations and World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters this week ended on Saturday afternoon – more or less on schedule, an outcome rare enough at the UN to be cause for celebration. The sunshine, Mont […] Continue reading ->
While air pollution claims more than eight million lives annually, the burden of proving exactly which air polluters or tailpipes caused a specific lung cancer or child’s asthma attack has rested firmly on the shoulders of the sick. That is about to change, according to a landmark United Nations (UN) report by Astrid Puentes Riaño, […] Continue reading ->
The United States was isolated in its opposition to the adoption of “agreed conclusions” at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on Tuesday, recording the only “no” vote at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Monday. There were 37 votes in favour and six abstentions from Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic […] Continue reading ->
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) began its 10-day session in New York on Monday, amid efforts by the United States to weaken women’s rights proposed in the draft outcome document. The theme of the CSW, the world’s biggest global meeting on women’s rights, is “ensuring and strengthening access to justice […] Continue reading ->