WORLD NEWS

April 2014  AfricaFocus; Today, there is an unmistakable shift in international consensus away from health sector privatization and user fees toward public provision of universal health coverage (UHC) with tax-based financing. As part of broader efforts to privatize health financing in recent decades, the issue of user fees, in which …

April 2014 TheHearald; Government plans to introduce diabetes clinics throughout the country to detect the disease early as well as reduce the rate of complications. The project, funded by the International Diabetes Federation, will start with a pilot project at Harare Central and Parirenyatwa Central hospitals in May. The IDF …

April 2014 Oxfam; A new privately-run hospital supported by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the IFC, is threatening to bankrupt the health budget of one of the poorest and least-healthy countries in the world. The Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital in Lesotho is the first of its kind in any …

April 2014 UHCFORWARD; Determined to further improve health indices and the overall well-being of the citizenry, Ogun State government has announced its readiness to roll out the pilot phase of its Community-Based Health Insurance Scheme (CBHIS) in six local government areas of the state. The local government areas are Abeokuta …

April 2014 JakartaPost; After an almost 10-year delay, the law on the national social security system will be implemented on Jan. 1. This Law No. 40/2004 is equivalent to the Old Age, Survivor, Disability and Health Insurance Act or the Social Security Law of the US. Both laws were enacted …

April 2014 Trust; Africa is losing $50 billion in illicit finance from tax evasion and transfer pricing each year, money that could be used to finance social welfare, Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on Friday. “We could finance health and education if we put in place a system to …

March 2014 TheGuardian; IT is no longer news that President Goodluck Jonathan has signed the National Health Bill 2014 (NHB 2014) into law. It is worthwhile to briefly recall that long before the said signing of the NHB 2014 Bill into law, the bill had been mired in no small …

March 2014 TheLancet; Public financing is the path to universal health coverage (UHC). UHC is rapidly becoming the overarching goal for national health systems and two recent events mark a new consensus that public financing is the way to get there.1 The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health2 focused on …

March 2014 SciDevNet; A website intended to rewrite the rules of how malaria research is funded failed to exploit the early potential of social media to link the public with researchers – but its one achievement, a new mosquito repellent is due to hit Tanzania’s market early next year. MalariaEngage, …

March 2014 usembassy; Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bass, and Members of the Subcommittee, for having me here today. I am delighted to be here to talk about the nutrition efforts of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). First, I want to recognize Congress for the strong leadership …