I believe the economy of the 21st century will be driven by the health sector. The economy of the 20th century was driven by machines which addressed human toil. The health sector can create millions of jobs for the extremely skilled, semi skilled, and unskilled workers.

These jobs are  vital for the stability of society.  Lack of employment is the root cause of unrest in the world today.  The health sector is also in a unique position to create millions of jobs for women. A woman coming from lower economic strata becomes empowered when she finds employment.  Empowered women will discipline and educate their children, who will in turn have the discipline and desire to build a great nation when they grow up. more…

My previous blog was about the Indian finance minister’s 2012 budget speech, which marked a significant moment for the much awaited, much required, paradigm shift in the government’s approach to reduce undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency.

An inter-sectoral strategy to address undernutrition in India, however complex it initially appears, is not that difficult to implement. Professor MS Swaminathan, chairman of the coalition for sustainable nutrition security in India was able to build a consensus regarding key interventions, both immediate and indirect, to address the multi-causal undernutrition/micronutrient deficiency in India. (May 2010) The Karnataka Nutrition Mission is structured on these interventions, and has been able to integrate them into a comprehensive programme, exclusively targeting the 40% of the population at the base of the pyramid. more…

In an attention-grabbing presentation, Paul Walker, of the US affiliate Green Cross International, engrossed delegates at the World Congress of Public Health in Addis Ababa with his skillful exposition of the burden on humanity represented by warfare and the preparations for it. Tying the issues neatly into the concerns of Africa, he noted that the global annual expenditure on military activities of all sorts was in the order of $1.5 trillion and that was twice the GDP of the entire continent. The annual expenditure in relation to nuclear war preparation is, by itself, $100bn. He named the guilty parties; those countries that were not yet signed up to the Test Ban Treaty, the Non Proliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Biological Weapons Convention. more…

The author Philip Gourevitch once wrote: “Oh Congo, what a wreck. It hurts to look and listen. It hurts to turn away.” Exploited and misruled for much of its modern history, this country has spent more than a decade in a state of semi-permanent civil war. 5.4m people have died, mostly from disease and starvation, and Congo’s abundant mineral resources bring nothing but the worst kind of exploitation.  more…

It’s boom time in Ghana right now. The country’s economy soared by 14% in 2011 thanks to new oil receipts—earning it a listing as the world’s fastest growing economy. This prosperity is a mixed blessing say the locals. Rents in the capital city Accra are approaching London levels—$2000 a month for an apartment in a decent area—fuel prices have rocketed, and food is expensive. But in the baking heat of the capital city’s Independence Square yesterday I witness a bit of African history made possible by Ghana’s emerging confidence. more…

Yesterday was World Malaria Day, a day that for me is filled with contradictions.

There are many reasons to feel encouraged. Globally the number of malaria deaths is dropping, thanks to progress on several fronts over the past decade: better prevention strategies, including widespread distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets; rapid, easy-to-use diagnostics; and more effective treatments at more affordable prices. Malaria is higher on the global health agenda, with more funds for developing new tools and testing new strategies.

But WHO estimates that current funding covers only 25% of needs for malaria control. And every day we see the consequences of this shortfall on the ground, where reality is sometimes far removed from all these advances. more…

The Flying Doctors Service of East Africa sounds like an echo from a romantic, and bygone age. But its formation in 1957 was the first step in the creation of a major African health development organisation that has been given the World Federation of Public Health Associations’ Institutional Award at the 13th World Congress of Public Health in Addis Ababa. The African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) has a great story to tell; of how it works in the remotest communities in Africa and works alongside those communities to build the knowledge and skills to transform their own health, how it provides training every year to more than 10,000 health professionals, and how it set up the international campaign “Stand Up for African Mothers” with its demand that no woman should die giving life. Oh, and it still provides a flying doctor and emergency evacuation service over much of Eastern and Central Africa. more…

There are five sick babies and only four incubators in the neonatal intensive care unit. What do I do? The infants who get the incubators and the ventilation equipment may survive because of it; the child who does not will probably die because of the omission. What would you do? Five tiny hearts flutter desperately inside fragile ribcages; four Perspex boxes offer temperature-controlled, oxygen-supplied environments. How I can decide who gets what? The dilemma has become familiar, but no easier, during recent weeks here in Quetta’s paediatric hospital. more…

The Indian finance minister’s 2012 budget speech marks a significant moment for the much awaited, much required, paradigm shift in the government’s approach to reduce undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency, the indicators of which are fast qualifying India as the malnutrition capital of the world (despite 8% economic growth). It is now clear that high growth rates are not automatically translating into better nutritional indicators, though there is marginal improvement in infant, child, and maternal mortality indicators. more…

As a project manager for MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders), a medical emergency humanitarian agency, I attended this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, in the company of a friend and collaborator from Google who is involved in crisis mapping. We gave a presentation on some mapping work we had done together, and inevitably we discussed the differences and similarities in our geek (high-technology) and primitive fieldworker (humanitarian) cultures.

The two cultures are, on the face of it, rather distinct. more…