Politics Matters: A Response to Recent Commentaries

McCoy and Singh rightly comment on how extraordinary it is to need to spell out the political nature, actions and motivations underlying global health policy (1), which articulates where they (and we) are coming from. Yet without such commentators, it would be easy for the global health community today to forget how political and macro-economic decisions in the 1980s and 90s gave oxygen to the social determinants that undermined the health of populations, especially in low-income countries. These fuelled the diseases that are the focus of today’s global health partnerships; and some of the same organisations played leading roles in setting the global health agenda then, as today

A study of cell-to-cell interactions and degradation in parallel strings : implications for the battery management system

Vehicle battery systems are usually designed with a high number of cells connected in parallel to meet the stringent requirements of power and energy. The self-balancing characteristic of parallel cells allows a battery management system (BMS) to approximate the cells as one equivalent cell with a single state of health (SoH) value, estimated either as capacity fade (SoHE) or resistance increase (SoHP). A single SoH value is however not applicable if the initial SoH of each cell is different, which can occur when cell properties change due to inconsistent manufacturing processes or in-homogeneous operating environments. As such this work quantifies the convergence of SoHE and SoHP due to initial differences in cell SoH and examines the convergence factors. Four 3 Ah 18650 cells connected in parallel at 25 °C are aged by charging and discharging for 500 cycles. For an initial SoHE difference of 40% and SoHP difference of 45%, SoHE converge to 10% and SoHP to 30% by the end of the experiment. From this, a strong linear correlation between ΔSoHE and ΔSoHP is also observed. The results therefore imply that a BMS should consider a calibration strategy to accurately estimate the SoH of parallel cells until convergence is reached

A concept in flux: questioning accountability in the context of global health cooperation

Abstract Background: Accountability in global health is a commonly invoked though less commonly questioned concept. Critically reflecting on the concept and how it is put into practice, this paper focuses on the who, what, how, and where of accountability, mapping its defining features and considering them with respect to real-world circumstances. Changing dynamics in global health cooperation -such as the emergence of new health public-private partnerships and the formal inclusion of non-state actors in policy making processes -provides the backdrop to this discussion

A Ghost in the Machine? Politics in Global Health Policy

Members of the 67th World Health Assembly in 2014 were presented with a framework document to guide World Health Organization (WHO) engagement with non-state actors, a key part of WHO reform kick-started in 2011. According to this document, non-state actors include four distinct constituencies: i) nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), ii) private sector entities; iii) philanthropic foundations; iv) academic institutions (1)

Politics & Policy Processes of Global Health Partnerships: The Case of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

At the 2008 Sir Mark Oliphant Conference on Vaccine and Immunotherapy Technologies, former GAVI Executive Secretary Julian Lob-Levyt described the organisation as “a new type of international entity…we are a pilot for new ways of doing development business”. Lauded since its inception in July 1999 as a 21st Century model for international development, GAVI emerged at a unique critical juncture in time. It also formed part of a more generalised and substantive shift from international to global health cooperation and the way that global health issues are addressed. For some, the proliferation of new organisational forms like GAVI appeared to promise a break with the past, renouncing the overly political bureaucratic processes of UN agencies while ushering in a new era of evidence, performance, and public-private partnerships. A shift in players, paradigms, and the political dynamics of global health has been taking place, with GAVI representative of this shift. The aim of this PhD study was to identify and analyse the processes that shaped GAVI's organisational structure and strategic policy direction at its emergence and later across key phases as it evolved. A qualitative case-study design was applied, which combined in-depth semi-structured interviews and documentary review. Analysis involved coding and categorising themes to identify and describe: key actors and coalitions; the organisational structures shaping and shaped by their actions; and policy issues as they evolved over time. Drawing on concepts from field and policy theories for discussion of findings, the thesis analyses GAVI as a strategic action field; occupied by incumbent and challenger coalitions organised around shared policy priorities; with coalitions acting to translate their policy priorities into organisational practice. While saving children’s lives was a shared goal, findings detail the frequently conflictual and political nature of GAVI policy processes and coalition priorities. Findings link changes in GAVI strategic policy direction and organisational reforms to the strategic behaviour of actors; the influence they exerted over key internal governance units; and adjustments in relations between (and gradually within) influential policy coalitions over time. In so doing, this thesis provides a comprehensive account of GAVI from a health policy perspective, and advances knowledge on how policy processes work more generally by setting out a new way to analyse old questions regarding who influences whom and how.</p

Politics Matters: A Response to Recent Commentaries

McCoy and Singh rightly comment on how extraordinary it is to need to spell out the political nature, actions and motivations underlying global health policy (1), which articulates where they (and we) are coming from. Yet without such commentators, it would be easy for the global health community today to forget how political and macro-economic decisions in the 1980s and 90s gave oxygen to the social determinants that undermined the health of populations, especially in low-income countries. These fuelled the diseases that are the focus of today’s global health partnerships; and some of the same organisations played leading roles in setting the global health agenda then, as today