Parents around the world want their children to have the chance to lead healthy, productive lives. The measles vaccine is an essential public health tool to protect children from this deadly disease so they can make their dreams a reality. Yet today, the World Health Organization warned that the progress toward reaching measles elimination goals has stalled. New data shows that we are at a turning point in the fight against measles – governments and […]

By Stephen Sobhani and Rebecca Fishman On this year’s World Toilet Day on November 19, 2.5 billion people around the world still lack access to sanitation and 1.1 billion people poop in the open. Sanitation is an oft neglected and taboo topic closely linked to infant and child mortality, undernutrition, and poverty. The good news It is a solvable problem and everyone – including children – can be part of the solution. As the world’s largest informal

By Rachel Henderson Last minute holiday shopping. We’ve all been there – one week before the holidays you’re scrambling to find the perfect gift. According to data from Deloitte, gift cards are the most popular holiday gift, purchased by 43% of Americans. You may not want to give a gift card though, and this is the year to give something special! Black Friday and Cyber Monday are still more than 10 days away, and there’s

It’s World Toilet Day and still more than one-third of the world’s population – 2.5 billion people – do not have access to proper toilets, and 1 billion people practice open defecation. Toilets may not be a popular topic of daily conversation, but it’s a crucial issue we need to talk about in order to create a healthier and safer world. Why? The facts are shocking. According to the UN: Every year, hundreds of thousands

While there have been some signs of progress in the global effort to stop the Ebola outbreak, the crisis is still extremely serious and demands greater resources. Simply put: We can’t let up now or we risk losing the gains we have made. That’s why some of the world’s top soccer players have teamed up with FIFA, the Confederation of African Football, and leading health experts, including from the World Health Organization, to raise awareness

The United Nations Foundation works to support the UN in solving some of the world’s most urgent challenges, so it’s with great interest that I read Understanding “New Power,” Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms’ new piece in the Harvard Business Review on how organizations can be most effective in driving positive change. The article is an insightful and thoughtful examination of how power is shifting in today’s world and how organizations can navigate the new landscape

Cooking shouldn’t kill. It’s a simple premise, yet every year more than 4 million people die from exposure to household air pollution from cooking over open fires or traditional cookstoves. Girls and women often spend hours collecting and carrying heavy loads of wood and other fuels for cooking. And the smoke from traditional cookstoves contributes to the growing threat of climate change. This is one of public health’s greatest challenges – and solving it is

As we begin to see some progress in the fight against Ebola in Liberia, the country hardest-hit by the outbreak, more details are now available about Ebola’s spread to neighboring Mali. Initially, a 2-year-old girl imported the virus from Guinea to Mali and sadly died of the disease on October 24. All 118 people believed to have come into contact with her have now passed the 21-day period without developing symptoms. However, the virus was

The ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa is unprecedented, with over 14,000 cases so far and a mortality rate up to 70%. While we are making some progress, we have a lot of work to do. Bringing the outbreak under control depends on quickly finding people with Ebola and isolating them during treatment so they cannot infect others. However, identifying cases of Ebola requires a good diagnostic test, and the current tests are cumbersome, slow, and complex.