Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, discusses the gender gap in access to mobile technology. Research conducted by Blair's organization has found that the gender gap is particularly wide in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Reuters investigates the legitimacy of North Korea's appeals for massive food aid that have gone mostly unanswered by a skeptical international community.
Micah Zenko says orbital space debris is a growing threat to civil, military, and commercial satellites in space, and mitigating the threat it poses to these satellites and spacecraft will require enhanced international cooperation.
The 2011 high-level UN meeting on non-communicable diseases fell far short of the major funding and targets agreed to at a similar meeting on HIV/AIDS a decade ago, which CFR's Thomas Bollyky says indicates a need for different actors and approaches on chronic diseases.
Why is the UN convening a summit-level meeting on illnesses like cancer and diabetes? This CFR guide looks at how these non-communicable diseases have amplified the burdens on developing states and the global threat they pose.
NCDs such as cancer and heart disease are becoming leading causes of death in the developing world and will be the focus of a September UN meeting. But health experts and others are divided about how much funding should go into a global campaign aimed at preventing NCDs and whether infectious disease programs will suffer as a result.
The World Health Organization has gained prominence for its success in battling diseases such as polio and malaria, but is challenged by an unwieldy mission and strained resources in a landscape of competing organizations.
This declaration, a draft resolution on noncommunicable diseases, is dated September 16, 2011. It was released before the UN General Assembly meeting on September 19-20, 2011.
This WHO document was released after the World Health Assembly on May 24, 2008. It was "designed to promote innovation, build capacity, imoprove access and mobilize resources".
Amanda Glassman, director of Global Health Policy at the Center for Global Development, discusses the impact of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), strategies to reduce NDC occurence, and the failure to implement such interventions.
Derek Yach, director of global health policy at PepsiCo, discusses the role of government and business in lowering mortality rates from non-communicable diseases (NCDs). "We now have overwhelming evidence, both of the health impact, and perhaps as importantly, we're starting to see the economic impact of heart disease, diabites, chronic lung disease, cancer," says Yach, arguing this data is raising global interest in the issue of NCDs.
Amanda Glassman and Kate McQueston suggest five affordable low-cost or no-cost interventions against the increasing frequency of non-communicable diseases.
Speakers: Scott Z. Burns and Laurie Garrett Presider: Sanjay K. Gupta
Following a screening of Contagion, screenwriter Scott Z. Burns and CFR's Laurie Garrett discuss public fear caused by health threats such as Anthrax and H1N1.
Authors: Pete Lamptey, Rebecca Dirks, and Inoussa Kabore
The authors consider how non-communicable disease prevention strategies might be integrated into pre-existing health platforms in order to minimize costs and maximize efficiency.
Authors: Sir George Alleyne, Alafia Samuels, and Karen Sealey
Sir George Alleyne, Alafia Samuels, and Karen Sealey explain the tensions between advocacy factions in the effort to reduce non-communicable diseases (and communicable diseases), and potential constructive resolutions.
Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, explores the lasting impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed on disaster preparedness and health policy in the United States. Garrett argues that "all our readiness response depends on well-funded police, well-funded fire departments, well-funded hospitals, well-funded public health infrastructures, and precisely the opposite is where we are going right now." Garrett cautions that U.S. preparedness for a major terrorist attack may be decreasing. "As budgets are being cut at the federal level, the state level, and the local level, we're actually less ready than we were in 2001," Garrett says.
The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.
Special operations play a critical role in how the United States confronts irregular threats, but to have long-term strategic impact, the author argues, numerous shortfalls must be addressed.
The author analyzes the potentially serious consequences, both at home and abroad, of a lightly overseen drone program and makes recommendations for improving its governance.
Two experts argue that despite myriad development strategies, only one can succeed in alleviating poverty in India: the overall growth of the country's economy. More