Australia is being ravaged by the worst bushfires seen in decades. Beginning in 2019, the fires have burnt through 25.5 million acres, the size of Denmark and Belgium combined. At least 27 people are dead, including three volunteer firefighters, and more are missing. Thousands of homes have been destroyed or damaged. Australia’s capital cities are experiencing record air pollution, and smoke has been seen as far away as South America. With the fire summer season extending for another few...

Malnutrition has the potential to bankrupt countries and prevent children from reaching their full potential. Unlike other food groups, fruits and vegetables provide beneficial outcomes across all malnutrition forms. Yet, despite the nutritional punch of fruits and vegetables, current global consumption is far below the minimum daily requirements of five portions. Join the Global Food Security Project for the release of Seeds of Change: The Power of Fruits and Vegetables to Improve...

Two things need to happen to achieve greater success in the global fight against HIV: dramatically reduce new infections and achieve viral suppression in those already living with the virus. In order to meet these goals, new infections must come down from an annual rate of 1.7-2 million that has been stagnant for a decade, viral suppression must be sustained and ensured for the more than 23 million people living with HIV (PLHIV) on anti-retroviral treatment (ART), and treatment must be...

While the world has seen tremendous improvement in the availability of life-saving vaccines, new, targeted approaches are needed to address remaining gaps in immunization coverage. Among pressing challenges are completing polio eradication; reaching the disenfranchised, including those in fragile and disordered settings; supporting governments as they develop their own sustainable immunization systems, and; addressing vaccine hesitancy. The World Health Organization (WHO), Gavi, the Vaccine...

The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on July 17, has been ongoing for over a year. As of mid-August, there have been over 2,800 cases and 1,900 deaths. The outbreak is not expected to be contained in the near future. Some experts argue that Ebola is becoming endemic to the area and will spread regionally. Médecins Sans Frontières and other NGOs are retooling...

Download the EVENT SUMMARY The CSIS Global Food Security Project invites you to join a discussion with a world-renowned expert and advocate on the opportunity for U.S. foreign policy and business to improve global nutrition. Dr. Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), was awarded the 2018 World Food Prize for his exemplary leadership in maternal and child nutrition and efforts to significantly reduce childhood stunting. Please join us...

On February 5, 2019, President Trump announced in his State of the Union address the launch of an ambitious campaign, “Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for the United States”, which will aim to end the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030.  Plans are actively in development to accelerate diagnosis, treatment, and prevention—including a dramatic increase in the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PreP) —in 48 counties, rural communities in 7 states that have a disproportionate occurrence of...

Rapid changes in warfare pose stark, complex challenges for international humanitarian law (IHL). Indeed, they raise fundamental questions about the relevance, normative power, and impact of IHL in today’s dangerous world. Proliferating conflicts are increasingly intractable, lasting for years or decades, causing protracted human suffering on a mass scale. Battles waged in densely populated cities suddenly put huge numbers of vulnerable civilians at-risk. Non-state armed groups – ISIS, Al...

The event will explore how the U.S. government can address the critical gaps and opportunities outlined in our nutrition policy primer, which will be launched at the event. The primer provides a global nutrition 101 for policymakers with key terms, interventions, and target cohorts and a landscape overview of the priority issues in global nutrition, important players, and the U.S. government’s investments. The primer also identifies critical gaps including a $70 billion global funding gap...

Please join the CSIS Global Food Security Project for the launch of our newest report, Risk and Resilience: Advancing Food and Nutrition Security in Nigeria through Feed the Future, by Julie Howard and Emmy Simmons. The report examines what the new Feed the Future strategy's emphasis on resilience means in Nigeria, one of the newly-designated target countries. Nigeria, with the continent’s largest economy, is arguably the most important partner for the United States in Africa and is on the...

The escalating conflict in Yemen has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Almost 75 percent of the country’s total population is in need of humanitarian assistance, 14 million people are facing pre-famine conditions, and the collapse of essential public institutions has led to a severe economic decline. With suffering reaching unprecedented levels, a political solution is imperative to effectively respond to this rapidly deteriorating situation.   How is the international...

With the Time’s Up and Me Too movements, 2018 has been dubbed the “Year of the Woman” – at least in the United States. But what about in global health?  Approximately 75 percent of the global health workforce are women, but women hold only 25 percent of leadership positions. This disparity exists despite women being disproportionately affected by malnutrition, HIV incidence, and mortality due to childbirth. It is impossible to think that global health targets, such as the Sustainable...

Please join the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security and the CSIS Africa Program on Wednesday, November 14 from 9:00am to 11:00am for a panel discussion on the Ebola outbreak in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The discussion follows the publication of a new Commission Issue Brief on the crisis. WHO leadership is critically important to ongoing Ebola response efforts. This week, Peter Salama, WHO Deputy Director-General of Emergency Preparedness and...

Over the last decade, there has been a mobilization to ensure low-income countries are able to purchase vaccines and expedite the introduction of new products into their immunization systems. While the effort has paid off in many areas, coverage rates have stagnated in recent years. To explore the way forward, the CSIS Global Health Policy Center is hosting a half-day conference focusing on novel approaches and innovative ideas for achieving more equitable vaccine delivery...

The bleak health realities of North Korea are an understudied part of the larger problem of potential instability on the Korean peninsula. North Korea has an exceptionally high rate of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), an estimated 42% of its population is undernourished, and at least 3 in 10 North Korean citizens are stunted. From a health security standpoint, these are just a few of the health issues that can pose an immediate threat to the surrounding region, especially through...

For the first time in recorded history, bacteria, viruses, and other infectious diseases do not cause the majority of deaths or disabilities in any region of the world. But the news is not all good. The recent declines in plagues and parasites have not been accompanied by the same gains in infrastructure, job opportunities, and governance that came with those health improvements in the past. That has meant the byproducts of better health – a growing young work force, less deadly cities, and...

Efforts to improve nutrition are among the most transformative and cost-effective interventions in global health and food security. Affecting one in three people globally, malnutrition is inherently intertwined with other pressing health and development challenges. As the single largest donor to global nutrition efforts, the United States plays a critical role in addressing malnutrition and advocating greater global support. Uganda, as a focal country of U.S. nutrition, health, food security,...

On October 10, the CSIS Global Health Policy Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation will co-host a public session focused on the outcomes of the UN General Assembly’s high-level meetings on ending tuberculosis (TB) and on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The meetings took place on September 26 and 27, respectively, in New York, and drew high-level political attention. The September 26 meeting focused on the future of global financing to accelerate efforts to end...

The CSIS Global Health Policy Center will host a public event to highlight lessons learned from the 5-year Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL) initiative. SMGL is a public-private partnership to dramatically reduce maternal and newborn mortality, implemented in Zambia, Uganda, and Nigeria. SMGL was unique in the way it brought together partners across U.S. Government health programs and agencies, as well as external partners and host governments to focus on a singular goal. The event will...

The CSIS Global Health Policy Center is hosting a symposium on the current state of pandemic preparedness policy and practice. This event will examine how U.S. and international policies aim to reduce the risk of a 21 century equivalent of the Influenza of 1918, while also addressing how these policies translate into practice in high-risk countries through collaboration between animal and human health professionals and institutions.  The symposium will take place on the eve of the opening...