The Mettaboy Report

While progress to achieve an internationally binding agreement against human-induced climate change appears to stagnate, a groundswell of innovative approaches is taking root. Among promising initiatives, is changing the business model of forest management, the third contributor of climate-warming gases. By offering payments for climate stabilizing services to forest-rich countries, avoiding/reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+), as a pioneering concept, works to change cost and benefits of land use investments in favor of valuing standing forests: more as stocks of stored carbon rather than wealth of timber and potential farmlands. Championed by rich western donors, REDD+ initiative injects a new momentum for conservation activities in developing countries. A game changer for sustainable development.  REDD+ aims in part, to transform forest sector policy-making, away from ‘’business as usual’’ top-down decision-making to one that is bottom-up and inc...

Canada is a world leader in health promotion, and has championed ground breaking international strategies on population health including the Ottawa Charter. The country has taken important steps to tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their risks factors: There is a national integrated framework as well as specific strategies to address key diseases and their associated risks factors including obesity. Equally important, with the endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on NCDs (UNGA) , Canada has recognized the global dimension of the NCDs challenge as well as committed to work towards better integrated, holistic, unified and coordinated approaches.  Yet despite increased efforts, prevalence of NCDs remains stubbornly high even when compared to peers. Overweight and obesity, important predictors of  chronic health problems like diabetes are at record high. Latest estimates from the OECD, an industralized country club, show that two out of three people are ov...

In the past two decades, cross-border and international health challenges together with their risks factors, have mobilized unmatched attention and resources. Once led by a few United Nations organizations,  global health has attracted hundreds of new actors, ranging from public to private sector organizations including foundations. With the plurality, comes the challenge to coordinate international health work and avoid needless duplication and wastes. And the absence of clear practice to set agenda, unveils a growing gulf between health needs and where resources are spent. What interests, values and mechanisms underpin global health governance?  In a recent article, Dr. Devi Sridhar argues that, the complex manner of setting agenda, ‘’is a consequence of a general phenomenon in global health, where the nature and type of funding dictates priorities [1] ..’’ She calls the emerging trend ‘’multibi-funding:’’ donors increasingly earmarked and channeled their support th...

Intake of high caloric foods, inadequate physical activity are in part behind  the alarming surge of obesity. Over the past several years, Canadians have been gaining excessive body mass at an epidemic proportion. An updated estimates from a recent study by the health ministry shows one in four Canadian is obese. The number may even be higher, assuming the bias inherent in self-reported data. Compared with other developed countries, Canada ranks top, in the number of overfed people, just behind USA and England.  The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a club of rich countries, projects an even disturbing picture: an additional 8 percent growth in the next seven years. The data hide differences across the country, class, gender and age. Prevalence goes up to 30 percent in some of the 10 provinces. Obesity follows a social gradient, correlating positively with income. While women with poor education are likely to suffer more  than educated wome...

Just over a year to the home stretch! The eight internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals, adopted in 2000, have mobilized unmatched resources and attention, resulting in significant progress for global health. Many countries in Africa are on track to reduce  significantly mortality from major killers: HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria as well as cut by half, preventable deaths of children and pregnant women. Beyond the aggregate measures, lie an uneven picture of success within and across countries, and goals. Even with additional efforts, many countries would likely miss their sanitation targets. So far, the gains that have been achieved reveal profound weaknesses in the system for delivering quality care to billions of unserved and underserved populations. For example, the chronic shortage of health workers, estimated by the World Health Organization to reach 4.2 million worldwide, 1.2 million of them needed in Africa, alone.  Already overwhelmed by an unfinished...

As dust settles over the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, it is time to assess the value the outcomes will add to sustainable development. With no major concrete commitments, easy to dismiss the non-binding agreement arrived at in Brazil, as ‘’business as usual’’ statements of intentions with no sticks to beat countries into staying the course of sustainability. But, looking forward, the document adopted by the international community contains promising innovations. In the endorsed resolution, The Future We Want, Member States committed to put in place building blocks to advance the sustainable development agenda. Heads of Governments renewed their commitments, launched new institutions, enhanced opportunities for participation, strengthened policy-science interface, and improved coordination at all levels. Under the leadership of the General Assembly, Rio + 20 Summit has placed sustainable development at the heart of United Nations work. More than b...