Political Economy for Health Blog

This blogsite is a resource of the People’s Health Movement. Its purpose is to provide a platform for discussion of the applications of political economy to the struggle for health. (The People’s Charter for Health provides an overview of PHM’s analyses and objectives: the ‘struggle for health’).


  • Making Sense of the Metrics

    Challenges of Measuring Progress towards Universal Health Coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals In the latest ‘Conversation on Health Policy‘ Prof T Sundararaman and Dr Siyam Amani explore the two principal indicators of progress or otherwise towards universal health coverage (UHC). Their conversation addresses some of the technical challenges involved in the measurement of progress…

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  • The Pink Tide in Latin America: limitations and possibilities

    The recent article by Steve Ellner on the ‘Pink Tide (‘Applying/Misapplying Gramsci’s Passive Revolution to Latin America’, Monthly Review, 76(5), 47-63. https://doi.org/10.14452/MR-076-05-2024-09_4) provides a useful overview and analysis of the debates among progressives regarding the limitations and possibilities of the Pink Tide phenomenon in Latin America. ‘Pink Tide’ refers to the election of progressive governments…

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  • Systematic delinking: a necessary condition for achieving development

    In “The Structural Power of the State-Finance Nexus: Systemic Delinking for the Right to Development” (2022) Bhumika Muchhala of Third World Network sets out the case for ‘delinking’ as advocated by Samir Amin. “The current era of financial hegemony is characterized by a dense financial actor concentration, an exacerbated reliance of many South countries on…

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  • Global Employment Trends for Youth (ILO, 2024)

    While the global labour market outlook has improved considerably for young people aged 15 to 24 more than fours years since the onset of theCOVID-19 pandemic, the picture is uneven across the regions. In 2023, 65 million young people aged 15 to 24 (13%) were unemployed worldwide. In 2023, 256 million young people aged 15…


  • Private equity takeovers are harming patients

    By Merrill Goozner in BMJ 2023;382:p1396, Evidence review suggests that costs rise and quality falls at acquired healthcare providers Private equity investment in healthcare provider institutions reached record highs in recent years in both the US and Europe, with US acquisitions accounting for three quarters of the combined $100bn (£78bn; €91bn) in investment in 2021.12 The…


  • South Centre Inputs on “Zero Draft Terms of Reference for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation

    Following the release of the Bureau’s Proposal for Zero Draft Terms of Reference (ToR) for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation and the call for written comments on the Zero Draft ToR, the South Centre has provided its inputs on various structural, substantive and procedural elements of the Zero Draft ToR (20…

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  • Australia gets nickel-and-dimed by Indonesian downstreaming

    By James Guild in East Asia Forum on 11 June 2024 Despite soaring nickel prices between 2016 and 2022, Australian nickel miners, such as Wyloo Metals and BHP, have struggled due to a surge in market supply from Indonesia, the world’s largest nickel reserve holder, leading to a fall in nickel prices. While Australian miners…


  • Financing Africa’s Climate Action

    By Mukupa Nsenduluka & Rachel Etter-Phoya from Tax Justice Network 22 May 2024, here Africa has contributed the least to global warming, yet millions of African people are facing the most severe impacts of the climate crisis. To combat these challenges – stopping floodwaters, feeding starving people, and increasing the resilience of the public sector –…

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  • The ‘Billions to Trillions’ charade

    By Jayati Ghosh, 27 May 2024, published first in Social Europe and then in IDEAs. The international-development sector has become fixated on calculating financing gaps. Hardly a day goes by without new estimates of the funds low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) need to meet their climate targets and achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals…

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  • What Comes After Neoliberalism?

    A panel of commentators brought together by Project Syndicate (4 June 2024) including Mehrsa Baradaran, Anne O. Krueger, Mariana Mazzucato, Dani Rodrik, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and Michael R. Strain are asked to respond to “What comes after neoliberalism?” The steep tariff increases on Chinese goods that US President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced are just the latest in a long string…

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