Where Is Global Health On The G8 Agenda?: As the G8 summit began in Deauville, France, on Thursday, David Olson, the council’s director of policy communications, wrote on the Global Health Council’s “Blog 4 Global Health” that “global health is nowhere visible on the agenda,” which “is in striking contrast to the final communique of the G8 Muskoka, which devoted a significant amount of space to health” (5/26).

Germany, Gates Foundation Pledge To GAVI Alliance: Ahead of the G8 meeting this week, Germany pledged 30 million euros to the GAVI Alliance for 2012, a 10 million euro increase over 2011, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it will match Germany’s 2011 and 2012 pledge increases with a 24 million euro donation to support childhood immunization in developing countries, according to a GAVI press release (5/26).

U.N. Highlights Three Decades Of HIV/AIDS: The latest issue of U.N. Chronicle features several articles looking at the epidemic as it enters its fourth decade (5/26).

U.S. Food Policy: On the State Department’s “DipNote” blog, U.S. Representative to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture Ambassador Ertharin Cousin writes, “While we strive for improved policy, strengthened institutions, and stronger partnerships, [the Obama] Administration has succeeded in changing the playing field in agricultural development and food security. From farmers to policymakers, there is greater global coordination and collaboration to support country-led agricultural development plans (5/26).

U.S.-U.K. Partnership For Global Development: In a joint fact sheet released on Wednesday, President Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron “reaffirm[ed their] commitment to changing the lives of the 1.2 billion poor people in the world today. … The President and Prime Minister are pleased to announce our collective interventions to achieve the best results for the world’s poorest people – advance economic growth, prevent conflict in fragile states, improve global health particularly for girls and women, and mitigate the effects of climate change” (5/25).

Bridging Knowledge Gaps In Water Management: This report by Katherine Bliss and Katryn Bowe of the Center for Strategic and International Studies provides four key themes that arose during a participatory workshop on domestic and international water issues: “knowledge management for decision-making; decision-making in a context of risk and uncertainty; interagency and inter-sectoral collaboration; and the relevance of political and regulatory processes to water, energy, food, and agriculture” (5/25).

Continue HIV Treatment While Data Is Collected On Treatment As Prevention: In this Journal of the International AIDS Society article, Juan Ambrosioni, Alexandra Calmy, and Bernard Hirschel of the HIV Unit, Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Geneva Hospitals examine the challenges of HIV/AIDS testing and treatment in light of research showing early antiretroviral therapy can nearly eliminate HIV transmission in discordant heterosexual couples. The global community “must strive to provide treatment to all those in medical need under the current medical guidelines. This will lead to a decrease in HIV transmission while ‘test-and-treat’ is fully explored in prospective clinical trials,” they write (5/25).

Questions For GSK On Investing In Health Care Workers: Commenting on GlaxoSmithKline’s announcement this week that it will redistribute a portion of its proceeds back to least developed countries (LDCs) to address the shortage of health care workers, Nandini Oomann, director of the HIV/AIDS Monitor at the Center for Global Development, poses two questions for the company on the center’s “Global Health Policy” blog and states that GSK “is in a unique position to combine lessons from the aid industry with its own private sector industrial efficiency and wisdom to lead the way for effective (locally derived and implemented, outcome based) private sector investment in global health and development” (5/25).

Progress Report On U.S. Food Policy: The Chicago Council on Global Affairs on Tuesday released its 2011 Progress Report on U.S. Leadership in Global Agricultural Development, which says “[s]ignificant U.S. achievements since 2008” have laid “a solid foundation to accomplish global food security objectives,” according to a Chicago Council press release (5/24).