Blog
Contributor Guidelines
Submitting guest blogs is open to Global Washington’s members of the Atlas level and above. We value a diversity of opinions on a broad range of subjects of interest to the global health and development community.
Blog article submissions should be 500-1500 words. Photos, graphs, videos, and other art that supports the main themes are strongly encouraged.
You may not be the best writer, and that’s okay. We can help you shape and edit your contribution. The most important thing is that it furthers an important conversation in your field, and that it is relatively jargon-free. Anyone without a background in global development should still be able to engage with your ideas.
If you include statistics or reference current research, please hyperlink your sources in the text, wherever possible.
Have an idea of what you’d like to write about? Let’s continue the conversation! Email comms@globalWA.org and put “Blog Idea” in the subject line.
Posted on August 4, 2014
By Hannah Atlas
For Michael Sidibe, Executive Director of UNAIDS, an AIDS- free world should look like this:
- Voluntary testing and treatment for everyone, everywhere.
- Each person living with HIV achieving viral suppression.
- No one dies from an AIDS-related illness or is born with HIV.
- People living with HIV live with dignity, protected by laws and are free to move and live anywhere in the world.
That world felt far away during the minute of remembrance held at the opening session of the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia in late July to mourn the colleagues lost in the Malaysian Airways crash. The tragedy killed a leading AIDS researcher and others headed to the conference from Amsterdam. Continue Reading
Posted on July 28, 2014
By Gailyn Portelance
July 11 was World Population Day and no region of the world is feeling the impact of demographic change like sub-Saharan Africa. More than half of the growth predicted by 2050 is expected in this region, where the number of people is set to more than double, from 1.1 billion to 2.4 billion. Within the same period, Nigeria’s population is expected to surpass that of the United States. Of course, sub-Saharan Africa is not the only region to experience this phenomenon, as the most rapid increases are expected in the world’s 49 least developed countries1. However, what makes the region unique is the growth of its overwhelmingly young population.
According to the World Bank, 62 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, more than 600 million young people, is below the age of 25, and this population also represents three-fifths of the region’s unemployed. Its share of the world’s working-age population (ages 15-64) is set to double from about 10 percent in 2010 to about 20 percent in 2050 – to 1.22 billion people2.
Continue Reading
Posted on July 21, 2014
By Hannah Atlas
Kevin Klingbeil knows data. As managing director of Big Water Consulting, a Global Washington member, he works with a range of clients, from small non-profits to government agencies to tribal groups, to assist them with incorporating meaningful data and visual data mapping into their daily operations.
“Big Water Consulting seeks to provide long-term, capacity-building solutions, rather than one-off projects and quick fixes to systematic problems,” said Klingbeil. “We make concerted efforts to respect and embrace each of our clients’ organizational and cultural values to ensure the most advantageous and sustainable outcome.”
Klingbeil presented about data collection, utilization and presentation at Global Washington’s July Executive Director Roundtable. He started the conversation by asking, “How do you measure impact and define success in your organization?” Klingbeil asked this question so that he could get to the “how,” because he knows that it’s the “how” where many organizations fall short. He cautioned that relying on words or vague phrases like “dramatic improvement” or “meaningful” and “significant” as a means of conveying the reach of an organization could do more harm than good. That is why Klingbeil and his firm advocate for the use of data in an organization’s narrative to create an image that is honest and transparent. Continue Reading
