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A Foreign Affairs Roundtable – Round One: January 23, 2007

In this special Web feature, Foreign Affairs has convened some of the world’s top experts — Paul Farmer, Jeffrey Sachs, Alex de Waal, Roger Bate & Kathryn Boateng, and Laurie Garrett to discuss Garrett’s essay “The Challenge of Global Health” debate how best to help the world’s poor and sick; and to debate her thesis […]

AIDS funding still in jeopardy in the new Congress

It appears that the Democrats haven’t resolved the problem we first identified back in December. We warned then that the Democrats didn’t want a new appropriations bill and instead are using a continuing resolution to fund appropriations for programs like AIDS. The problem is that the Bush Administration had asked for an increase in funds […]

Amy Patterson’s new book The Politics of AIDS in Africa

I am reviewing Amy Patterson’s new book in the upcoming Political Science Quarterly. I’ll hold off commenting in detail until the review comes out, but Patterson’s book is a good read and has quite a lot of interesting detail. Through case studies of South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, she tries to explain why some […]

New study on the links between AIDS and behavior in Africa

Lauren Necochea from the Princeton AIDS Initiative reports on a study by Emily Oster, an economist at the University of Chicago, profiled this week in the New York Times. Oster looks at why there have been minimal changes in sexual behavior in response to HIV risk in Africa. She offers two economic explanations for this. […]

SSRC Job opening–AIDS Coordinator

The SSRC, based in NYC, seeks a Program Coordinator to help lead and manage international policy research collaborations on HIV/AIDS and Gender and Security. The Program Coordinator will report directly to the Senior Adviser, and work closely with a small team, including the Initiative’s Senior Adviser, Program Director and other project staff. For more information […]

Gates reassesses investments

Well, sensitive to bad press from the LA Times, the Gates Foundation announced a turnaround on its investment policies and will seek to incorporate some socially responsible screening of their investment portfolios. This is being hailed as a bellwhether for the philanthropic world, though the original piece (actually a two-parter) struck me as something of […]

New APSA/ISA papers

We’ve compiled a number of new papers from recent conferences of the American Political Science Association (APSA) and the International Studies Association (ISA). Older papers are available here. – Barnes, Nielan. U.S.-Mexico Collaboration: The Role of Transnational Networks in Shaping Community-Based Responses to HIV/AIDS. 2006 ISA Conference. pdf – Burchardt, Marian. Western Science vs. Local […]

Is AIDS a security threat?

Journalist Stephan Faris has a nice essay in the recent Atlantic which looks at why the Pentagon ranks AIDS as a major security threat. The piece quotes from Sue Peterson’s paper (which we discussed at our Princeton meeting last year) that found a statistical connection between AIDS and a decline in socio-economic indicators which, in […]

Future of the Global Fund Transcript

Earlier, we publicized the CGD event on the future of the Global Fund. The transcript is posted on the CGD website. People were largely pretty boosterish on the Global Fund which contrasts with the recent Washington Post editorial. It appears that the February board meeting will be the next critical meeting to discuss the next […]

Semi-Hatchet Job on Gates Foundation in LA Times

So, the LA Times has a semi-hatchet job on the Gates Foundation today, basically lambasting the Foundation for investing in companies that are socially irresponsible. In other words, the Gates Foundation apparently does not have a social screen on its investments to ensure they are consistent with the principles and moral aims the Gates Foundation […]