Tag Archives: Health

Good intentions are enough – to ‘nearly kill’ a local kid

Posted in: Aid Effectiveness, Ethics in development | March 25, 2013 at 9:00 am , by Guest Author/s

Who has the right to make decisions about a child's health? An anonymous contributor describes how a situation where an NGO took responsibility for the care of an 11-year-old boy was nearly disastrous for the child, and how it raised all kinds of ethical questions about a child's care....

MDG 5a: An update on maternal mortality

Posted in: Aid Effectiveness, Health | February 12, 2013 at 8:00 am , by Mike Miesen

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With two years left, it is highly unlikely that Millennium Development Goal 5a will be met worldwide. In our second post this week on the MDGs, Mike Miesen weighs in with some simple solutions....

Goals are good, but do the MDGs need to be simplified?

Posted in: Aid Effectiveness, Alternatives in development | February 11, 2013 at 4:00 pm , by Scott Weathers

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This week we present three posts around the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). There are eight MDGs that need to be met by 2015. Given the unlikely even that all will be met, Scott Weathers suggests we condense the MDGs into something simpler....

Tobacco, Poverty and the Need for Global Action

Posted in: Health, Poverty, Research | August 31, 2012 at 7:00 am , by Sam Byfield

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The recent High Court judgement in Australia upholding legislation to enforce plain packaging for tobacco products provides a good opportunity to look at the impacts of tobacco in low and middle income countries, and what’s needed to stem the tide of poverty and mortality they cause. Sam Byfield, of the...

Education still a long way off for children with disabilities in poverty

Posted in: Disability, Education | February 22, 2012 at 8:00 am , by Lucy Daniel

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The cycle of poverty and disability can be broken, argues Lucy Daniel of CBM Australia. But, although the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and AusAID include girls and children with disabilities in education programs they fund in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines, what is happening on the ground...

Are you psychologically equipped for working in aid and development?

Posted in: Self-help | February 15, 2012 at 9:04 am , by Alessandra Pigni

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Alessandra Pigni has collected stories, reflections and suggestions from humanitarian professionals on the topic of self-care. With this, she has put together a white paper series of practical recommendations to better prepare humanitarian professionals for field missions. Read more about this ground-breaking series in her second post for whydev.org....

What’s happening to the rights-based approach?

Posted in: Gender, Human Rights | August 5, 2011 at 1:20 am , by Akhila Kolisetty

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Is a rights-based approach being lost in the midst of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and monitoring and evaluation? Akhila, while acknowledging that tangible results are important in development interventions, suggests that we are forgetting the rights-based approach. Implementing approaches that try to address the underlying problems of structural inequalities is...

Crazy bake: the black dog of development?

Posted in: China & Development | June 8, 2011 at 4:40 pm , by Brendan Rigby

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In this post, Brendan has a look at Crazy Bake, an NGO located that seeks to include those with mental health problems in baking and other social and economic activities at a hospital in Beijing. Although, he has a few misgivings about this organisation, in the broader context of mental...

Hardly one bad Apple spoiling the bunch

Posted in: China & Development | March 17, 2011 at 2:03 pm , by Alex Grey

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Apple again hit the news in late February over poor working conditions in its supply chain. At least 137 workers in an assembly plant that supplies Apple with touchscreens, in Suzhou, China, have nerve damage from exposure to n-hexane. But from Alex's perspective, working in a labour law legal aid...

Alternative approaches to nano-innovation and global health equity

Posted in: Technology | December 10, 2010 at 5:25 pm , by Donnie Maclurcan

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Today is World Human Rights Day, a day to celebrate the universal rights afforded to all and a day to remember the widespread inequalities that still exist. Recent advances in nano-innovation signal the potential for big impacts on addressing inequalities in global health from this very, very, very small technology....

Photojournal: South Africa

Posted in: Multimedia | November 19, 2010 at 12:07 pm , by Stuart Meney

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Stuart Meney wrote an article back in May that considered the impact of a football World Cup on the African continent. June arrived not long after. Balls were kicked, the world tuned in and the fortunate few who travelled to South Africa were treated to a truly memorable sporting festival....