In the 2001 World Development Report devoted to poverty, it is stated that there are limits to a micro-level approach to poverty, and a macro-level approach is advocated for. The…

Statistics create subjects; they tell stories and shape cultures. Over the past five decades, development practitioners have prided themselves on successfully creating more sophisticated ways to measure and compare. Statistics…

Inspired, extracted (plagiarized) and paraphrased from her novel “The Daughter of Fortune”, Plaza y JanesEditores SA, Barcelona, 1999, pp 296-301. Some of us have for too long lived surrounded by…

Variations on a theme by South African Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer.Inspired, plagiarized and paraphrased from her novel “A Sport of Nature”, Penguin Books, N.Y. 1988. I am not lonely.…

Variations on a theme by the Danish writer Peter Hoeg. Inspired, extracted (plagiarized) and paraphrased from his short story “Reflections of a young man in balance”, in Tales of the…

I have been re-reading some of the Health Sector Reform (HSR) and health and poverty literature. I have been amazed by the ambiguity, lack of clarity and of a sense…

Equity in health means equal access for equal need. Near-zero-priced public services for the poor is an essential public policy towards equity. Government intervention in the inequitable workings of the…

Introduction Many of our fellow development professionals are not satisfied with the training future generations of our colleagues are receiving. Quite a few have been vocal about it and discussions…

Capacity/accountability analyses (that tell us why duty bearers at many levels do not seem to be able to perform their duties as expected) are a cornerstone of Human Rights planning.…

The notion of duty and justice (…and not compassion!) give rights their cutting edge. Power is the key relation in health and Human Rights issues: A right confers power, i.e.…