I hold a Master in International Development Studies and a Master in International Health. Currently I am employed as a PhD fellow at the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen where I am a part of the Danida funded project ‘Fragile Futures: Rural Lives in Times of Conflict’. This project explores health systems in Burkina Faso and how people in rural areas build trust in the state through their perceptions of and interactions with state-sponsored health services, especially in the aftermath of a national conflict in the health care sector. I bring experience from my previous employments for the UN (UNFPA national and regional office in West Africa) development NGOs and NGO networks (Sex og Samfund), from Danida (TAS) and various consultancies (the World Bank, NGO Forum, Danish Mission Council Development Department) as well as a teacher and supervisor at various departments of the University of Copenhagen in the field of HIV and AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
When popular protest deposed former Burkinabé president Blaise Compaoré last year, many feared the country would see violent conflict. Lise Rosendal Østergaard argues that this was never inevitable. A sense of pragmatism evident in recent labour disputes shows that Burkinabés are more interested in getting on with their lives than turning to violence.
Photo credit: Göran Höglund Kartläsarn
In these months the Ebola virus is spreading much faster than health systems in West African countries can respond. According to WHO more than 1700 people are infected, of which 932 have already died (as of 6 August 2014). This is the worst outbreak since the disease was discovered in in 1976 in Zaire.
Photo credit: Tommy Trenchard/IRIN
In Chile, most HIV positive women get HIV from their husbands in their own beds, concludes International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS Chile in their recent press release. In other words, their partners engage in extra-marital relationships with other men or women and then refuse to use a condom. An additional challenge to preventing HIV transmission is that Chilean society says that as soon as a woman in a long-term relationship requests the use of a condom, she is suspected of cheating. So women don’t ask. The Chilean women are not alone. There are women around the world that do not ask because they don’t dare to.