Lauren Dobson-Hughes

Not really. The Kenyan agreement says that the types of data will be agreed during implementation. We know specimen samples and disease outbreak data are included though. And yes, it's likely they're trying to push US IT contracts to manage data systems

G20 2026: Cohesion or Chaos? The recent G20 summit in Johannesburg was historic—it was the group’s first meeting in Africa and concluded its first rotation. But this summit will also go down as notorious for being boycotted by th...

Any analysis of the US premised on the idea it can 'manage its own chaotic political impulses' is doomed to fail

The US of my imagination could deliver a productive, useful G20. The US that exists in reality maybe not so much

www.cgdev.org/blog/g20-202...

If you’re a middle aged white guy who used to work with Carney in finance, and you don’t have a senior job in the Canadian government yet, you’d almost wonder what’s wrong with you

Yield Giving Established by MacKenzie Scott to share a financial fortune created through the effort of countless people, Yield is named after a belief in adding value…

As traditional donors withdraw from gender equality, MacKenzie Scott has to be the largest funder of global feminist movements now

Just this month, at least to $215 million to Mama Cash, Equality Now, Global Fund for Women, Prospera, AWID, MADRE, Women Win and more

yieldgiving.com/gifts/?essay...

When spousal jealousy keeps women out of work. Guest post by Kailash Rajah

India: Women were 46% more likely to apply for jobs at a women-only workplace, in large part because their husbands were too jealous to allow them to work alongside men

blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Here are the US global health deals either signed or pending, with the percentage cuts in funding compared to FY25

Kenya: signed with 20% cut
Rwanda: signed 70% cut
Liberia: signed, not published, but looks like 41% cut
Zambia: not signed, 30% cut
Malawi: not signed, 40% cut

It is now increasingly hard to see a refreshed global health system built around multilateralism, when the entire system is being upended by brute and imperial power interests via these US bilateral health deals

Classic of this US administration, the health deals are happening so fast with so little documentation, it's almost impossible to track or hold anyone accountable

And they're signed with nations where....accountability is a creative concept

Lessons from America's Health Agreements with Kenya and Rwanda What America politicians are paying for, what they want, and what countries and civil society can own.

The US bilateral health deals offer less money for health than FY25, and come with significant impositions. The Kenyan deal had to be walked back because US demands for Kenyan health data violated the Kenyan constitution

emilysbass.substack.com/p/lessons-fr...

The US is rapidly signing bilateral health deals with African countries

These deals by their nature undermine multilateralism. The health part is also ancillary. They are a strategic tool to advance US interests, including exclusive access to data and commercial market access

It is not so much USAID cuts that fundamentally altered global health, it's the America First ideology

The global health system is built on the idea of pooled risk and shared values. We agree infectious disease is bad, and women should survive child birth

This is no longer a shared vision

There are lots of technical discussions ongoing about the global health architecture, like

- Merging some of the big multilats
- Bringing UNFPA into WHO
- Weighting board compositions towards global south countries

Too few of these conversations grapple with the political reality

In 2025, development assistance overall will have dropped by about 30% since the height of the pandemic

Global health funding will have halved. From $80bn in 2021 to $40bn in 2025

No individual solutions can fill a structural gap of that scale

Interestingly, the global health system stopped delivering results a few years ago, in part due to covid, in part conflict. Infectious disease cases up, fewer people getting care

The recent funding cuts were the final lagging indicator of a system not fit-for-purpose

Global health has been at a crossroads for some time. The system was set up in a different era. It's donor-heavy and complex, with competing interests and gaps

There are too many global north-dominated bodies, competing for funding and with mission creep

The Monks in the Casino A brief theory of young men, "the loneliness crisis," and life in the 21st century

Yes there are systemic reasons young people don't socialize much. We should regulate online gambling. We need third spaces

But the author doesn't at all ask why this only causes 'loneliness' for men. Why aren't young women hiding away become misanthropes?

www.derekthompson.org/p/the-monks-...

Does Europe Finally Realize It’s Alone? Washington’s new National Security Strategy ratifies an adversarial relationship.

Every time Trump or members of his administration have lashed out at Europe, Europeans have absorbed the blow with a forced smile and bent over backwards to flatter the White House. They believe this is a clever ploy

This is strangely reassuring, but wrong

foreignpolicy.com/2025/12/05/n...

He added: "We're liberal, we're progressive, we're multicultural, and as importantly, we're incredibly successful. We've shown diversity is a strength, not a weakness."

Sir Sadiq suggested Trump was angered by London's repeated choice of a progressive mayor from an ethnic and religious minority

They can only conceive of dual citizens as brown immigrants. It hasn't occurred to them that most dual citizens are born and raised Brits

For example, two million Britons hold Irish citizenship through their parents. But that's not who they mean

Britain: Willing to take any scale of economic hit as long as we can do more racism

Welcome to Britain, a country so short of dentists that an MP's 87-year-old mum pulled her teeth out with pliers. Also a country with thousands of foreign-qualified dentists who can’t work until they pass an exam so oversubscribed it’s like trying to book Glasto tickets. www.ft.com/content/f4e5...

What happens when a city takes women’s unpaid work seriously? Bogotá’s radical experiment in caregiving is going global.

The policies you enact when you understand women hold up most of your economy

Care blocks that address women's time poverty, by not just providing care, but also laundry, legal services, education, rest, and social spaces www.vox.com/policy/46963...

South Africa cancels Palestinian visa waiver, citing Israeli ‘emigration’ efforts Pretoria says Israeli actors are abusing visa exemptions to facilitate ‘voluntary’ displacement from Gaza

South Africa cancels tourist visas for Palestinians, after two mystery flights linked to Israeli 'voluntary emigration' campaign www.middleeasteye.net/news/south-a...

America's Weakness, Europe's Strength The 'new' national security strategy is the admission of defeat from a declining country

“Europe and its civilisation is an obsession for Trump. Partly because they are white nationalists…But there’s a self-destructiveness to it, like the coercive ex who stalks his former partner online and believes he has the right to comment on her choices”

arthursnell.substack.com/p/americas-w...

The vexatious imbecile Johnson: What the ETTING in the off a plane US the other day, I noticed a lot of people waiting at the door. They were all tabarded airport staff, and they had wheelchairs. all That's strange, I thought. It looked as touentrev mysterious rise in the numbers As we went up the jet bridge there were more and more wheelchairs, like the lobby of a geriatric hospital. wondered varuey aloud to one or ce alport stan. wny do so many people seem to require this type of assistance these days? It's just i those things, ne of passensers are asking for saem Some flights - he mentioned Toronto to Miam! wheelchair use. Imost 40 per It seemed like ar ucure. but I didn't the winter migration, of flocks of Cana-plane for a burst of Plorida sunshine demanding wheelchairs to get to their They think they are being taken for mugs plane tells us months later. I thought no more about the phenomenon. Apparently, it is everywhere. There is about the ever in insatiable popular hunger, at almost airlines are starting to get fed up. Tre spiralling costof many or their passengers are incapable of getting on to the plane using their own two feet. They think they are being taken for and that at least some of these the welfare state

A constant blazing terror that somewhere, somebody might be getting a free cheese sandwich. Or indeed brief use of a wheelchair.

It is both deeply ironic and profoundly funny that all these overconfident maga chud dudebros are convinced they'll be at the top of a meritocratic system, when in reality they're actually the ones who've benefited most from what they themselves characterize as non-meritocratic factors.

A worldview that divides people into givers and takes will prevent people from supporting redistribution, inclusion, sustainability and other progressive values. It will prevent people from voting Labour in elections. Labour is shaping public opinion against progressive politics.

Elon Musk is worse at hiding it but this is the problem with all billionaires: they are a threat to democratic governance. They have an insatiable need to own and control everything. If you want to be free you have to curb their power, and demand political leaders who understand that