A comprehensive report on the outcome of the immunisation workshop and decade of vaccine meeting in Namibia, listing progresses, challenges and recommendations in strengthening immunisation programmes.
Work towards next year’s G20 in France has already begun. So what can we look forward to in the year ahead?
All hail the plastic garden chair, the bringer of small comforts to people in unlikely places!
It’s the World Cup Final on Sunday, but I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about the vast, pitiless void that’s waiting immediately after the final whistle.
I can’t believe it’s almost over. Never mind goal-line technology, top of Sepp Blatter’s priority list should be extending the World Cup by at least a fortnight, especially given how much effort I put into watching the thing.
It’s always a bit strange meeting someone whose voice you’ve heard so often on the radio but never seen what they look like in the flesh. Before meeting Mike Thomson – reporter for BBC Radio 4 Today Programme – I did a quick google on him to find a picture. In reality the picture didn’t look like him at all so it wasn’t much help!
Videoblog 2 from South Africa: The big day arrives – kick-off
5.30am alarm call to go to do BBC Breakfast News live from the Orlando Stadium, where the big World Cup kick-off concert is happening tonight. Interviewed by BBC sport man Chris Hollins (here we are below). It’s been really warm during the day since I arrived in South Africa on Tuesday, but this morning in that park across the road from the stadium it was FREEZING.
As the plane touched down the temperature gauge read 100 degrees. It had been climbing rapidly as we descended into Niamey, the capital of Niger.
Django, the driver who met me at the airport said that it’s not very hot at the moment!
Before arriving in Niger I have to admit to not knowing very much about the country except that it had a severe food crisis in 2005 – a repeat situation we’re tying to avoid this year.
After an intense two weeks on the advanced field training (AFT) course, my mind turned towards the next half of my internship that I would be spending in South Sudan.
I felt well-prepared after six months of working and participating in training courses in London, although I was not sure how the freezing temperatures in the Welsh hills on the AFT would help in the 35+ temperatures of Africa’s largest country…
Sure enough, on arrival, it was the heat that hit me and a realisation that this rather alien environment would be home for the next six months. As soon as I stepped off the plane I started sweating and I have not stopped since. Why i packed three jumpers in my luggage I will never know.
I’m working on a health proposal today; pulling together information from our work, reports, the internet, the news.
Malnutrition rates have broken the emergency threshold. Not far from here the number of children who die before they are five is at one and half times the emergency level, and almost three times the average for sub-saharan Africa.
But, despite all this, I’m feeling really optimistic. I genuinely think this situation can be changed. Nothing here feels like a basket case, a black hole. It feels like a place stuffed with potential and possibility, just waiting for a chance to shine.
