This post was originally published on USAID's IMPACT blog.
What if you could take a fraction of a penny and use it to help build a health system? Believe it. It takes only a fraction of a single penny per American taxpayer dollar to train a global health workforce—a workforce that will reach millions through treatment, prevention, and counseling services.
Just ask midwife Teddy Tiberimbwaku, who had the opportunity to meet Uganda’s vice president Thursday.
Last year, Uganda’s Ministry of Health, operating with only one doctor and 13 nurses to serve every 10,000 people, was told by the Ministry of Public Service that not only could it not create any new positions, but also any unfilled positions—some 42 percent of them—would be lost. Read more »
This 
For millions of women in the world, giving birth is one of the biggest threats to their lives. Nigeria has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios
The focus of community health worker (CHW) discourse seems to have changed, and in my opinion, for the better. Whereas it previously seemed to me that global health conferences and literature focused primarily on training and task-shifting for CHWs, a recent meeting sponsored by the 
On my trip to India last month, I didn’t plan to focus on maternal health care, but walking through the maternity ward in Bihar, I couldn’t help but worry about the long lines and hours that keep a woman waiting to see a doctor. The health officials I met with are incredibly committed to serving their communities. In one case, I actually had to walk through the maternity ward to reach my meeting with members of the chief surgeon’s office and the head of district medicine. I realized these men and women walk by the patients every day—women like the proud new mother who urged me to come over and take a photograph of her new daughter. Although the hospital I was in is among the nicest in the state, it lacks many of the essential information systems that can make a health system run efficiently and effectively. In practical terms, this might mean the women I walked by would not have to spend so long waiting to be seen. 
Here are five articles I found particularly interesting this week:
