Health
There has been bad news about the effectiveness of the leading candidate for a malaria vaccine. Has the time has come for donors to make an Advance Market Commitment?
Continue reading“This map shows the life expectancy at birth of those living around each London Underground, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station and 2) the rank of each London ward on the spectrum of Income Deprivation Affecting Children… Continue reading
Progressive development thinkers have welcomed the announcement of new money for the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization (GAVI), and support the partnership between governments and the private sector. A minority of NGOs have criticized GAVI on the grounds… Continue reading
We would get three or four times as much bang for our buck - in terms of climate change benefits - from population policies and girls' education as we would from the most cost-effective investments in forest management, and in addition we'd get the broader economic and social benefits for the people of developing countries.
Continue readingWalking home today after having lunch in a nearby cafe, I was asked for money by a middle aged man suffering from podoconiosis, sometimes called Mossy Foot.
I bet you… Continue reading
Pharmaceutical companies do not have many fans among development workers.
This is a shame, because the development of effective pharmaceuticals has been one of the most transformative new technologies of the last century, increasing life expectancy and the quality of… Continue reading
This week I attended the inauguration a new Marie Stopes family planning clinic in Woldia in northern Ethiopia. Together with yesterdays announcement by the UN of a new "Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health", Every Woman, Every Child, this has led me to reflect on the importance of family planning and maternal health in Ethiopia and in other developing countries. There is huge unmet need for family planning here in Ethiopia which, if met in full, could both directly improve the lives of many families in Ethiopia, and result in a substantial increase in incomes per head. A decade of sustained access to modern contraception could have increase incomes per head in Ethiopia by roughly the same amount as the whole of today's international aid to Ethiopia. The new UN strategy, Every Woman Every Child, isn't really a strategy, but it is a welcome restatement of the importance of the health of women and children. It is shocking that it is almost completely silent on abortion. (Here in Ethiopia, unsafe abortion is responsible for a third of maternal deaths.)
Continue readingAn interesting Economist article about the uses of prizes to promote innovation is a missed opportunity to explain the economic logic of prizes for innovations for developing countries. The reported comments by Tachi Yamada at the Gates Foundation about the value of market success do not seem to take account of the shortcomings of the system of patents and markets when it comes to developing drugs for diseases that mainly affect developing countries, nor to the problem of ensuring access in developing countries for new drugs.
Continue readingA new article published in The Lancet by Chunling Lu with Chris Murray, Dean Jamison and others, has caused quite a stir in development circles. They use data on health aid and government spending on health to estimate that… Continue reading
Laura Freschi at AidWatch lists four ways in which the brain drain from Africa is a good thing. Her analysis includes (a) gains to the migrants; (b) gains to the migrants’ families; (c)the benefits of exchange of ideas; and (d)… Continue reading
I like GAVI (the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) a lot. Childhood immunization is a hugely cost-effective way to help people in developing countries, and GAVI does very good work helping to get vaccines to children in developing countries.… Continue reading
Aid budgets are limited by the amounts that rich countries are willing to allocate for foreign assistance. There are limits to the generosity of parliaments, finance ministries and taxpayers. At the same time, in developing countries there is… Continue reading
On the first World Pneumonia Day, spare a thought for the mothers and fathers of the five thousand children who will be killed today by pneumonia.
Pause for a moment in silent thanks to the staff of the GAVI… Continue reading
Over on Huffington Post, Seth Berkley and Orin Levine make a plea for the United States to consider an Advance Market Commitment for an AIDS vaccine:
Traditionally it has taken up to 20 years for new vaccines to reach children… Continue reading
Tim Harford has an interesting article in this weekend’s Financial Times about private health and education in developing countries:
Imagine that your daily earnings were less than the price of this newspaper. Would you consider buying private education and private… Continue reading
Edinburgh University forces firms to supply cheap medicines to developing world:
Edinburgh is to become the first British university to help make cheap medicines available to the developing world by licensing research to pharmaceutical companies only on condition that poorer… Continue reading
On his first day in office in 2001, President George W. Bush reinstated the so-called Mexico City Policy — known to critics as the global gag rule. It prevents the US government from giving money to organizations that provide… Continue reading
I know this is all very immature, but I thought this was a funny idea (via):
when you make a donation to Planned Parenthood in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been… Continue reading
Incentives for Global Health have published a new report:”The Health Impact Fund: Making New Medicines Accessible for All”
The Health Impact Fund, our flagship proposal, is a new way of stimulating research and development of life-saving pharmaceuticals. To provide wide… Continue reading














Hello Owen, Stumbled on your website by accident…I’m currently trying to arange a visa for someone I work...May 16, 2013
Dear Biniam, Please refere to the following link. http://www.ethiotelecom.et/new s/news.php?id=85April 25, 2013
Hi all, I have the expereiance that blackberry phones will not work directly with the Ethio-telecom GPRS...April 25, 2013
Hi! The service provider in Ethiopia, Ethio – Telecom states the APN settings are the following: APN : etc.com...April 9, 2013
Interesting ideas, I wrote some thoughts on them here,April 24, 2013
”Today for the first time ever, I felt so relieved after I realized I wasn’t looking out making...April 19, 2013
Barack Obama (2/2013): “So the United States will join with our allies to eradicate such extreme poverty in...April 19, 2013
Owen: Where are we going with this? Is this a refutation of the power law of wealth distribution?April 10, 2013
Hey Abita check out my website as I may need a guide like you to help me run bike tours there, we just did...April 5, 2013
Hey Jeff enjoy the riding there–I have run several bike tours there out of Toronto and I love riding...April 5, 2013
Hi guys I totally disagree with your assessment of the children. I have ridden from Adiss to Lalibela 5...April 5, 2013
Hi Owen The long format works well for me because (like Robb) I enjoy getting into the substance and...April 1, 2013