United Nations (UN)

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Cuba’s Ebola Diplomacy

Jon Lee Anderson | The New Yorker | November 4, 2014

Even in this age of international coalitions, the one arrayed against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is impressive. In September, more than a hundred and thirty nations voted in favor of a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring the virus, which is rampant in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, a threat to international security and creating the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, devoted to fighting the virus...

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Developed Countries Are Making $47 Billion A Year From Forced Labor

Nikhil Sonnad | Quartz | May 27, 2014

A recent United Nations report puts the amount of profits made from forced labor at $150 billion. It’s easy to assume that the money is made almost exclusively in countries with weak institutions and corrupt law enforcement. But the report estimates that developed countries are home to $47 billion worth of such labor exploitation. Read More »

Ebola Spreads Exponentially In Liberia, Many More Cases Soon: WHO

Stephanie Nebehay and Umaru Fofana | Reuters | September 8, 2014

Liberia, the country worst hit by West Africa's Ebola epidemic, should see thousands of new cases in coming weeks as the virus spreads exponentially, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.  The epidemic, the worst since the disease was discovered in 1976, has killed some 2,100 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria and has also spread to Senegal...

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Exclusive: Inside America's Plan To Kill Online Privacy Rights Everywhere

Colum Lynch | FP | November 20, 2013

The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a universal human right to online privacy, according to diplomatic sources and an internal American government document obtained by The Cable. Read More »

Experts Propose Global Targets for Cutting Antibiotic Use

Chris Dall | CIDRAP News | August 19, 2016

Arguing that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens to erase decades of progress in medicine, public health, and food security, a group of global health experts is urging the United Nations (UN) to set global targets for reduced antibiotic consumption. In a commentary published yesterday in Science, the authors argue that countries should aim to consume no more than the current median global level of antibiotics (8.54 defined daily doses per capita per year), an amount they say would reduce global antibiotic use by more than 17.5%...

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Feds Ratchet Up Public Health, Tech Efforts To Battle Ebola

Staff Writer | Government Health IT | September 25, 2014

It appears almost definite at this point that the Ebola outbreak is likely to get worse, and very much so, before it shows any signs of lessening.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, in fact, projected that the number of infected people could potentially double every 20 days if nothing is done — a figure that could skyrocket to 1.4 million by January’s end...

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Food Tech Leaves Rural People Behind

Michel Martin | NPR News | April 24, 2014

Technology enhanced food production has come a long way, but nearly an eighth of the population still suffers from chronic hunger. The United Nations' Kanayo Nwanze discusses what might help. Read More »

Gates Foundation Spends Bulk Of Agriculture Grants In Rich Countries

John Vidal | The Guardian | November 3, 2014

Most of the $3bn (£1.8bn) that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given to benefit hungry people in the world’s poorest countries has been spent in the US, Britain and other rich countries, with only around 10% spent in Africa, new research suggests...

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Global Geospatial Group To Promote Equitable Data Access

Gozde Zorlu | SciDev.Net | August 18, 2011

A high-level global group promoting geospatial information could help developing countries gain better access to data to help tackle issues such as climate change, conservation and disaster management. Read More »

Google’s New Coding Champion Is a 17-year-old Cameroonian Whose Hometown Has Been Cut Off the Internet

Abdi Latif Dahir | Quartz | February 14, 2017

In Nov. 2016, Nji Collins Gbah, a tech enthusiast from Bamenda, Cameroon, started participating in the Google Code-in competition, the global online contest which introduces pre-university students aged 13 to 17 to the world of open source. Despite his tenacity, the odds seem stacked against Gbah...During the seven-week program, Gbah completed 20 tasks using the Open Medical Record System, or OpenMRS, a platform that focuses on improving healthcare service in developing countries.

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HEALTH: Spending Your Way Out of TB Infection

Staff | IRIN | February 17, 2012

Brazil has achieved a steady decrease in TB and has halved the death rate since 1990, despite not achieving the conventional benchmarks for a successful control programme. Draurio Barreira, who coordinates Brazil’s national programme...attributes the achievement to political commitment. “The big news was the transformation of social policy… by a real increase in minimum wage, and cash transfer programmes for the poor - in the last sixteen years poverty in Brazil decreased by 67 percent.” And, just as in Europe in the 1800s, as poverty declined, TB declined as well.

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HELINA 2018: Call for Papers

Press Release | HELINA | May 5, 2018

The 2018 edition of the Pan-African health informatics conference (HELINA) is scheduled from 3rd – 8th December 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference will be hosted by the Kenya Health Informatics Association (KeHIA) and will focus on how technology is being used to strengthen health systems in the African Region. HELINA conferences have been known to provide a platform for both academia and industry to showcase results of scientific research and industry practice. 

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Here's Why Africa's Ebola Epidemic Is Officially 'Spiraling Out of Control'

Tom McKay | World.Mic | September 2, 2014

Health authorities admitted Tuesday that the West African Ebola virus epidemic is accelerating quickly and may soon outpace the ability of medical teams to contain it. Meanwhile, the grim situation is being made worse by a massive strike among Liberian health care workers, who have accumulated large amounts of unpaid wages while suffering from overwork and the constant risk of exposure...

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Historic Milestone For Rights Of Readers As UN Negotiators Finalize Treaty For The Blind

Maira Sutton | Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) | June 27, 2013

Member states of the United Nations concluded the draft of an international treaty this week that gives people with visual and reading disabilities better access to copyrighted works. Read More »

HLN's Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) chosen as a Digital Public Goods Standard

Press Release | HLN Consulting | November 1, 2021

HLN Consulting is thrilled to announce that the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) project has been chosen by the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) as an innovative openly licensed technology and listed in their Digital Public Goods registry. Technologies included in the list are considered to be digital public goods in alignment with the Digital Public Goods Standard. ICE now appears in the Digital Public Goods registry where it is discoverable as a digital public good and reflected on a growing network of catalogs and aggregated lists of digital public goods.

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