Illicit financial flows cost Africa $88 billion annually

Posted on September 11, 2025September 22, 2025

The African Union, in an August 2025 report, estimates that illicit financial flows (IFFs) cost countries in Africa $88 billion per year. IFFs are illicit or illegal funds derived from criminal activities and/or illegal tax practices that are moved or transferred across countries, including international trade manipulations (the most common), tax evasion, smuggling, government corruption, and money laundering. Nearly half of these losses come from the ‘extractive sector,’ mostly mining. IFFs are fundamental drivers of economic injustice, and enormously undermine…

Re-imagining foreign aid

Reimagining Aid Africa decolonization decolonizehealth equity fair taxation Geopolitical global health international aid International Responsibility resource mobilization social determinants of health

Posted on March 21, 2025April 1, 2025

Farah Stockman in her NY Times editorial decries the chaos and devastation from cuts in US foreign aid, but also calls for re-imagining a foreign aid that addresses serious flaws inherent in the current forms of aid. We know that local groups (especially under-funded government health systems) are far more cost-effective and attuned to what communities need – and stay long after foreign workers depart. Cutting out the middlemen is essential, and more cost-effective – as leaders in the global…

An Abyss of Suffering: The Daily Account of a Goma Resident Amid the M23 Invasion

War/Militarism drc Geopolitical Goma Human Rights Violations International Responsibility political determinants of health social determinants of health War

Posted on February 7, 2025February 21, 2025

This article is written in French and English. For the English version, please see below. La version française Le 25 janvier au matin, le Mouvement du 23 mars (M23), milice soutenue par le Rwanda, a envahi Goma, la plus grande ville de l’est de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC). Le Bureau de la coordination des affaires humanitaires des Nations unies estime qu’au moins 3 000 personnes ont été tuées depuis que les rebelles du M23 se sont emparés…

Moving Beyond Allyship in the Decolonization of Global Health

Decolonization decolonization decolonizehealth Geopolitical global south international aid the lancet

Posted on January 23, 2025February 7, 2025

The University of Washington School of Public Health’s Alison Wiyeh, MD, MSc (PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology with a concentration in public policy and management) and Ferdinand Mukumbang, PhD, MS (Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health) recently published a correspondence in The Lancet, “Global South leaders should strengthen strategic capacity“. The commentary describes the limitations of relying on Global North allyship in the decolonization of global health. Wiyeh and Mukumbang’s argument is particularly salient following current…

Global Election Results: Rejecting the Unhealthy Status Quo

Structural Violence corporate greed Geopolitical political determinants of health

Posted on November 29, 2024December 27, 2024

Around the world, global elections reflect an emerging pattern: people are expressing discontent with a political and economic system that fails to address their most basic needs and well-being. This frustration manifests differently depending on context, whether through voting choices or street protests. At their core, these actions reflect a growing recognition of how governance, policies, and the uneven distribution of resources directly impact people’s everyday lives, well-being, and health. In the United States, the 2024 election results illuminate this…

Sudan’s Forgotten War

War/Militarism Africa Geopolitical Global Health Justice Human Rights Violations International Responsibility Militarism Social Justice Stop The Bloodshed the lancet War

Posted on October 19, 2024November 1, 2024

Ezzeldin Saleh and colleagues, in the October 2024 Lancet, draw attention to the horrific and unprecedented conflict in Sudan that has caused immense suffering for the Sudanese people since April 2023. Nearly 11 million people have been internally displaced, and 2.3 million have sought refugee status in neighboring countries. The economy has collapsed, and famine is rampant throughout the country, with approximately 53% of the countries 25.6 million people experiencing high levels of food insecurities – and 14 areas experiencing…

Chiquita guilty of funding terrorists in Colombia

Social Determinants of Health Structural Violence Colombia corporate crime corporate greed Corporate predators decolonizehealth Geopolitical Human Rights Violations inequality International Responsibility political determinants of health social determinants of health Social Justice

Posted on June 11, 2024July 15, 2024

A South Florida jury just found Chiquita Brands liable for killings by right-wing paramilitary death squads that the the company financed in their banana plantations. Chiquita, formerly the United Fruit Company (UFC), has a long history of deadly repression against workers. The New Orleans-based multinational has long monopolized land and markets and controlled governments throughout Latin America. UFC was implicated in massacres in Colombia, the overthrow of democratically elected President Jacobo Arbens of Guatemala, and propped up many so-called “banana…

Rewriting the Script of Global Health

Posted on November 7, 2023January 14, 2024

In the heart of Rwanda, a pharmaceutical revolution is unfolding, disrupting a global health order long dominated by high-income nations. This bold move by a nation determined to chart its own course in healthcare sovereignty embodies the spirit of decolonizing global health. It serves as a testament to the possibility of a world where equity in health is not just an aspirational goal but an actionable reality. This narrative of empowerment and systemic change ignites the conversation around decolonizing global…

Could you patent the sun? How vaccine patent waivers would save lives

Medical Apartheid Apartheid counterfeit medicines decolonization Economic Sanctions Geopolitical Global Health Justice Health Inequities healthcare workplace violence Human Rights Violations phantom aid public health Structural violence Vaccine Apartheid

Posted on October 6, 2023January 27, 2024

The world had the chance to truly treat COVID-19 as a common problem and respond to it in an equitable and just manner. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, politicians, mainstream media and celebrities in the West declaring the disease the “great equalizer” – implying that this novel virus would affect everyone regardless of their position, wealth, race, or power. However, as the pandemic progressed, it became abundantly clear that this was not the case. Instead, the development and distribution of several effective…

Substandard medicines blamed for 285,000 childhood malaria, pneumonia deaths

Medical Apartheid counterfeit medicines Economic Sanctions Geopolitical global north global south Health Equity Health Inequities Healthcare Access International Responsibility Social Justice Vaccine Apartheid

Posted on September 13, 2023December 14, 2023

VIdya Krishnan, an Indian Journalist writes about a “dirty secret in global health:” that rich countries get quality medicines and that the poor countries often get poison. Her op-ed in the Sept 11 New York Times describes the regulatory inequities between rich and poor nations. and how these inequities fail to prevent manufacture and export of substandard medicines. Rich countries have well-funded regulators keeping an eye on the safety and quality of drugs; most low income countries don’t have the…