https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/health/tuberculosis-xdr-tb-cure.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa1909953
Several steps forward in the treatment of TB – both a more effective vaccine as well as new effective therapy for XDR strains. No magic bullets, but some steady progress.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/opinion/haiti-earthquake-anniversary.html
A crushing piece from Jacob Kushner about Haiti 10 years after the earthquake, as viewed from the much-featured story of Fabienne Jean. The failure of the international community to live up to its promises of support or to routinely engage in partnership with the Haitian people has been depressing to witness.
To mark the end of 2019, a trio of pieces looking back and forward.
– a Bill Gates Foundation reviewing some of the biggest steps forward over the decade
– an NPR Goats and Soda piece also charting positive and negative trends as we head into 2020 (I’m especially excited about #decolonizeglobalhealth)
– and a Devex piece looking at policy shifts to monitor in the new year, noting that the changes in domestic policy in the US and UK will ultimately determine the flow of the bulk of development money
https://newint.org/features/2019/07/01/long-read-progress-and-its-discontents
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/opinion/why-are-poor-women-poor.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Finally, two pieces (NewInt via my friend Michelle Morse’s recommendation) that remind us the importance of metrics and framing in development work. The first points out that “the end of poverty” as measured by “no-one < $1.90 a day” isn’t a great accomplishment – lift still is terrible at that arbitrary number – and reviews how some of the voices of global development are silent about structural matters stemming from high-income country policies. This is echoed in the second piece, which focuses on the question of why poor women in LMIC are poor, and reminds that there is no silver bullet for poverty.
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