In the wake of the United Nation’s declaration of famine in parts of war-torn South Sudan, humanitarian agencies are scrambling to deliver emergency assistance for the 100,000 people currently facing starvation and the more than 1 million more who are on the brink of it. These efforts could be stymied, however, if access issues in the war-torn country continue to prevent aid workers from reaching the people most in need. Read more.
An interview with Patrick Phiri, the health coordinator for the Malawi Red Cross, who is based in the country's capital, Lilongwe. Read more.
Gambia's new president has stated that maternal and child health will be his first priority and experts are hoping for a new focus on health in the country. Read more.
The Global Fund has pledged to re-energize HIV prevention and, in line with that commitment, civil society groups are calling on the Fund to offer more explicit data on how much it spends on these efforts. That includes not only overall expenditure data, but also granular information, like spending at a country level and spending on specific interventions. Read more.
A U.S. executive order pausing the refugee program and barring nationals from seven countries from entering the United States for 90 days could endanger thousands of Somalis who had been cleared for resettlement, aid agencies and humanitarian workers warn. Read more.
A country threatened by terrorism grapples with its dark history of surveillance. Read more.
Update: I spoke to Seán Moncrieff as part of his daily news program on February 9. Listen here.
More than 11 years after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Dominic Ongwen’s arrest, and nearly two years after he was captured and transferred to The Hague, his prosecution finally began in December.
Ongwen’s will not be the only trial unfolding over the coming months. The years since the unsealing of the warrant against him have been rocky for the ICC, which has been accused of reinforcing global power dynamics and targeting geopolitically weak states, particularly in Africa. These were among the reasons three African countries—Burundi, South Africa and Gambia—cited in late 2016 when they announced they would begin the process of withdrawing from the statute that created the court. More are threatening to follow.
During this particularly fraught moment in the ICC’s history, Ongwen’s trial promises to keep many of these issues at the fore. And it could be used either to reinforce the court’s necessity or further undermine its legitimacy, especially on the African continent. Read more.
Digital technology has long been touted as the key to helping smallholder farmers around the world overcome barriers that have kept them trapped in poverty, though initial innovations did not always deliver on this promise. Now developers of digital tools for agriculture are trying to refine their offerings, focusing on products that farmers want to use and that align with their priorities. Read more.
One of the more unexpected decisions to emerge in the waning days of Barack Obama’s presidency was his move last week to ease U.S. sanctions against Sudan that have been in place for nearly two decades. The move to open up Sudan’s economy might encourage the reforms that 20 years of sanctions have not. Read more.
Two high-profile initiatives were launched late last year, each designed to shore up the response to the global tuberculosis epidemic. Read more.
Mysterious visitors started drifting in on the second morning of a mid-December training for Tanzanian reproductive health providers. First, organizers said, a woman entered the conference room of the Dar es Salaam hotel, announced herself as a BBC journalist and took a seat. Then unidentified men started coming and going.
“It should have been a big red flag for us,” said Nguru Karugu, health and rights consultant for the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa, a human rights-focused grant-maker that organized the meeting.
Despite the interruptions, organizers continued the sessions helping representatives from eight different NGOs chart development strategies. Their organizations had been selected for the training because they provide health services to key populations — vulnerable communities such as sex workers and men who have sex with men, who often face discrimination in public facilities. Though local NGOs, organizers said some of the groups receive funding that originates with major bilateral donors, including the United States.
As the participants broke up for lunch, non-uniformed security officials swarmed the hotel, according to organizers and witnesses. Together with the unexplained attendees, they shut down the meeting and detained eight of the participants.
The third anniversary last week of the start of South Sudan's ongoing civil war served only to reinforce how intractable that conflict has become. A peace deal is in tatters, along with the country's economy. With the return of the dry season, the combatants appear to be preparing for another round of fighting. And the United Nations is now warning of possible genocide. Read more.
Concerns over disease outbreaks — and the threat they pose to international security — will for the first time feature prominently on the agenda of the upcoming Group of 20 summit. A coalition of development and relief agencies is using the opportunity to push global leaders for stronger commitments to improve health systems in some of the world’s poorest countries. Read more.
Uganda’s Ministry of Education is set to shutter the 63 schools run by Bridge International Academies, whose pioneering model for low-cost, private education has drawn significant attention — and investments — from major international players, including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.
Bridge has expanded quickly since opening its first schools in Uganda in February 2015, with more than 12,000 students currently enrolled in its academies across the East African country. According to ministry officials, though, it did so without meeting national standards. Bridge officials refute the allegations, and some education experts cast them as part of a broader international campaign to stop the development of affordable alternatives to underperforming public school systems. Read more.
There is a need “for self-initiated products that women, especially young women, can and will use consistently. Women need practical and discreet tools that they can use to protect themselves from HIV infection,” said Dr. Flavia Matovu, an epidemiologist and investigator with the Makerere University-Johns Hopkins University Research Collaboration, based in Uganda.
Now, researchers including Matovu hope they may have an option in the vaginal ring, a flexible piece of silicon laced with an antiretroviral medication. Women insert it near their cervix, where it can safely remain for about a month, slowing releasing the drug at the site of a potential infection. The method is being tested in two crucial “open label” extension studies, wherein all willing participants will receive the medicated ring, rather than a placebo.