As championed by the United Nations and other NGOs, the international commitment to providing ‘health for all’, universal basic schooling and adequate shelter has long been contradicted by a development approach based upon a market fundamentalism that subordinates human welfare to corporate profits – necessitating an enormous shift in global priorities.
In an increasingly globalised world, with new cross-border threats to
public health and widening disparities between populations, civil society
actors are challenging the existing structures of global health policies. The latest report by the
People’s Health Movement.
One billion children live in urban areas, a number that is growing
rapidly. Yet disparities within cities reveal that many lack access to
schools, health care and sanitation, despite living alongside these
services, says the latest flagship report by the United Nations childrens agency (UNICEF).
The malaria pandemic still affects half the world's population, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where it remains a huge killer. But the battle is as political as scientific, and
the issue of the distribution of funding - reduced since the economic
crisis - has taken on crucial importance, says Pauline Léna.
Conventional wisdom insists that the private sector is much more efficient than the government, but is this really true? Recent privatisation initiatives in health, education and national defence have proven more expensive and less effective than the public-run alternatives, writes David Morris.
As the world population approaches seven billion, still many developing countries are struggling to keep pace
with the investments that are required to meet the needs of their
growing populace. So what are the prospects for the two billion more people that are expected by 2045? Analysis by IPS News.
Conventional thinking on development issues is often characterised by many assumptions, clichés and rationalisations about the residents of slums. In challenging some of these core myths, we can focus on the structural causes of urban poverty that result in the rapid growth of informal settlements, writes Adam Parsons.
The increasing rate of slum growth in the Global South is the direct result of an international development paradigm that fails to prioritise the basic needs of the poor. A world without urban poverty cannot be realised without a redistribution of power and resources on the national and global level, argues a report by Share The World’s Resources.
