High expectations for Germany’s new development minister
Svenja Schulze, Germany’s new development minister, is seen as one of the more progressive voices within her party, the Social Democrats, on climate policy at a moment when the issue is set to take on a central role across the new government. That means, observers said, that she and her new ministry could be positioned […]
At WTO, a battle for access to COVID-19 vaccines
A proposal introduced by South Africa and India seeks to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines and other technologies, but high-income countries are determined to block it. Read more.
Why France and Germany’s narrow approach to WHO reform matters
The French-German proposal on WHO reform released this year is already influencing discussions at the European level, but critics say it prioritizes the concerns of rich countries. Read more.
Funders grapple with underrepresentation in COVID-19 trials
The novel coronavirus has taken a disproportionate toll on underserved communities. Imbalances between ethnic groups gained the most attention, but the disparities extended to older adults and communities grappling with job and food insecurity, as well as poverty. At the same time, those groups already dying disproportionately from COVID-19, in part because of their earlier […]
Complete World Health Summit 2020 coverage
All of my coverage from the 2020 World Health Summit: World Health Summit kicks off amid pandemic Can funders help bridge the gap between development and health research? At the World Health Summit, global south representatives had a message for donors
A new research experiment in Kenya raises questions about ethics
A randomized controlled trial conducted among some of the poorest residents in Nairobi included threatening the disconnection of water and sanitation services if landlords didn’t pay outstanding debts. The study aimed to understand how to enforce payment for water and sanitation services and resulted in 97 of the 299 compounds selected for the enforcement intervention […]
Can we build resilience to both pandemics and climate change?
Rather than framing the climate and health crises as separate or competing for scarce resources, experts say there is an opportunity to leverage funding to simultaneously make communities more resilient to both pandemics and climate change. Read more. Photo by: Aurélie Marrier d’Unienville / IFRC / CC BY-NC-ND
In Germany, voluntary monitoring of supply chain abuses ‘has failed’
In Germany, businesses are supposed to monitor their foreign subsidiaries and contractors for human rights violations on a voluntary basis. But preliminary results of a survey of larger companies conducted by the Federal Foreign Office found only 22% actually do. The ministers of labor and of economic cooperation and development have a plan to dramatically […]
#SmartDevelopmentHack: Germany searches for COVID-19 solutions
Marcel Heyne knew he was sitting on a solution to a problem that emerged early in the COVID-19 pandemic: How to get information about the virus to people in rural communities with high levels of poverty, where literacy is low. For several years, Heyne has been building Audiopedia, a stockpile of audio information on critical […]
Countries race to strengthen compulsory licensing legislation
With potential vaccines racing through the development pipeline at dizzying speeds and existing drugs showing promise as possible treatments for COVID-19, pressure is mounting to ensure all countries have affordable access to any therapeutics or vaccines that eventually emerge. That is far from guaranteed, but governments of lower- and middle-income countries also have tools they […]