By Pascal Barollier, Director of Communications at the GAVI Alliance At the end of January, we were taught a lesson in the power of social media in global health as a striking interactive map of vaccine preventable outbreaks since 2008 went, well, viral on Twitter. By the middle of the week, more than 500,000 people had visited the map, and in an intriguing piece of research, the trail of tweets led all the way back […]

In the United States, we are given a birth certificate and an official identification number when we are born. We become official citizens. When I turned 16 I got a driver’s license. Many of us will travel overseas and need to apply for a passport. As we live our lives, go to school, visit a doctor, or register to vote, we are able to do these things because we have been given a number that

The World Health Organization (WHO) is generally the first place the world turns for information on potential international health emergencies. In addition to WHO’s roster of health experts and its decades of experience with health threats, it also plays a central role in carrying out the International Health Regulations (IHR), a global framework adopted in 2005 to help improve global public health security. What are the International Health Regulations? A total of 196 countries have

Everybody’s talking about the crazy weather.  The polar vortex walloped the Eastern United States with ice and snow while the West suffers through extreme drought.  Big parts of Britain were hit by record-breaking floods.  January 7 was the hottest day in Australian history, with an average high temperature of 105°F over the entire country. These unusual events are not unusual in themselves – but the pattern is consistent with what scientists have told us about

What is one thing world leaders should do to empower girls worldwide? That’s the question we put to the Girl Up campaign’s current class of Teen Advisors. Girl Up works with youth to raise awareness and funds for United Nations programs that help some of the world’s hardest-to-reach adolescent girls. The Teen Advisors – 20 young leaders from diverse geographic, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds – share ideas and feedback on the campaign and help lead

The countdown is on: President Obama will release next year’s budget request to Congress in less than two weeks – and considering Congress recently voted to slash UN Peacekeeping funding for FY14, we’ve got some serious ground to make up. The timing couldn’t be more critical: As we speak, peacekeepers are risking their lives to restore peace and save lives in war-torn countries like South Sudan.  The current budget for the U.S. underfunds UN peacekeeping

By Rick Reilly, ESPN.com Columnist and Nothing But Nets Champion A lit birthday candle means a lot to me, since I’m so old I remember when we invented fire. Good times. I still make a wish when I blow out my candles. Sometimes they even come true. But not everyone is that lucky. Every year, more than half a million children in Africa die from malaria – that’s one child every 60 seconds. Those children

[Check out these updated stats from 2015] How much do you know about the brave men and women under the blue helmets who risk their lives to restore peace to some of the world’s most dangerous places? Check out these 10 facts about United Nations Peacekeeping to get to know them better: 1. UN Peacekeeping is made up of 116,919 total field personnel, with 123 countries contributing troops, police, and civilian personnel. 2. There are

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on Climasphere to mark World Wildlife Day on March 3. By Kellie Caught, National Manager Climate Change, WWF-Australia Imagine your favorite wild animal or place, like the majestic polar bear bounding across the northern ice tundras, a graceful turtle gliding through the Great Barrier Reef, a soulful orangutan swinging through the magnificent Borneo forest, or a small orange frog glistening in the Amazon. Now imagine a world without them.