The challenge of local implementation in Uganda's new nutrition policy →

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Despite presidentially endorsed, multisectoral strategies  to end malnutrition, including a new national plan set for approval in a matter of weeks, stunting remains pervasive among children across Uganda, affecting almost a third of all children under 5 years old — an estimated 2.2 million, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

That rate has dropped gradually over the years, from 44 percent in 2010, and it is actually slightly ahead of the regional rate of 35.6 percent. But it is not falling fast enough for many children. According to experts, Uganda’s shortcomings underscore, not a policy gap, but a failure to translate those policies into more resources, better services or even higher awareness of the problem in some communities.

International agencies and NGOs have taken some of the slack, but Uganda’s struggles reflect a broader concern with a global target approaching to reduce stunting by 40 percent by 2025 rapidly: Doing so requires coordination across sectors and a willingness to push national policies to a local level that only a government can provide. What happens if that commitment, whether for political or economic reasons, never makes it past the planning stage?

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Uganda chosen to host Africa's biggest HIV conference amid LGBT crackdown →

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In her plenary address at the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa, Cindy Kelemi, executive director of the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law, and HIV/AIDS, called attention to missing political leadership in the HIV response.

"In our beloved Africa, there are many countries with anti-LGBTI policies and laws," she told the audience in Kigali, Rwanda. "We need political leadership to remove political and structural barriers."

The very next day, ICASA officials announced that Uganda — a country that has recently renewed a crackdown on its LGBT community — would host its 2021 conference, the largest gathering related to HIV/AIDS on Africa’s calendar.

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The EAT-Lancet Diet is unaffordable, but who is to blame? →

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The authors of a new study on the cost of the EAT-Lancet diet have some criticism of the new guidelines, but caution that most reference diets are priced above the poverty line. They said the broader fault lies in systemic issues, such as the way food systems operate and how much people are paid for their work. The research also underscores the reality that achieving a nutritious, environmentally sustainable diet will require a lot more than focusing on just what people eat. Read more.