One of the exciting things about the opening of the UN General Assembly in the wide variety of politicians, activists and civil society organizations it brings to New York every year. This year, one of those activists was Graça Machel, an international activist for women and children rights as well as the former first lady of Mozambique and South Africa. In a briefing following her appearance at the Social Good Summit, she talked about the launch of the SDGs and the challenges that lay ahead.
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Photo credit: Heidi Soeters/CDC
Reflecting on Lessons Learned from Ebola Outbreak
As the UN celebrates the official launch of the post-2015 agenda with the Sustainable Development Goals and world leaders start laying out their views in the UN General Debate, much of this week in New York is about looking forward. But on the sidelines of the main events focused on the SDGs, peacekeeping, violent extremism and the Syrian crisis, many are using this week as an opportunity to look back at the past year. Namely, a year after the West African Ebola outbreak reached its peak, many are discussing what went wrong and how to better prepare for the next epidemic.
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The UN Gives a Big Boost to Child and Maternal Health
Now that the UN and global community officially adopted the Sustainable Development Goals last week, the real work begins. One of the key holdovers from the Millennium Development Goals is the issue of maternal and childhood health. After making incredible strides since 2010, the Every Woman Every Child initiative (EWEC) is now gearing up to for the post-2015 agenda to end all preventable maternal deaths and the deaths of children and adolescents around the world.
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Turning the Digital Revolution Into a Health Revolution to Achieve the SDGs
As the post-2015 agenda ramps up and the international community prepares for the official launch of the Sustainable Development Goals, the focus is turning to what tools can make the SDGs achievable. One major change that has occurred since the release of the MDGs is the data revolution, where big data can now be used to gauge the progress of goals and identify program gaps. At a meeting this week in Washington, DC, key development stakeholders are tackling the questions of how the data revolution can help achieve health-related SDGs and move closer to universal health coverage across the world.
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