Notes on Article Contributors

The Millennium Development Goals’ focus on just three infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria, and belatedly, tuberculosis) configured the global health funding landscape for 15 years. neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), a group of 17 or so diseases that disproportionately afflict the world’s ‘bottom billion’, are a symbol of global health inequities, in terms of prioritisation, research attention, and treatment. This article traces efforts to include NTDs in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda and, having achieved that goal, lobby for an influential position in the post-2015 aid agenda. The SDGs herald a shift to a more expansive approach and there is a risk that NTDs will once again be left behind, lost in a panoply of new goals and targets. There is, however, an opportunity for NTDs to lever their ‘neglect’ and be recast as a tool of accountability, acting as both a target for and proxy indicator of health equity for the SDGs.

Gerald Bloom is a health system analyst and co-convenor of the IDS Health and Nutrition Cluster. Much of his work has focused on the management of health system change in complex and rapidly changing contexts. He has a particular interest in strategies for improving access to effective and affordable health care in pluralistic health systems, with complex combinations of public and private providers. He leads the IDS participation in the Future Health Systems consortium of health systems research institutes, and he is a co-investigator in the Unequal Voices project in Mozambique and Brazil.
Vera Schattan Coelho holds a PhD in Social Sciences, and is the Coordinator of the Citizenship, Health and Development Team (NCSD) at the Brazilian Centre of Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP), and a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Metropolitan Studies (CEM Cepid). She is also a Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in Public Policy at the Federal University of the ABC Region, Brazil. Vera is an expert on policy analysis and public policy evaluation, and her areas of interest are health systems, health inequality, citizen engagement and accountability mechanisms in policy process, and the impact of social policies.
Jose Dias is currently working as advocacy and learning Leader at the Centre for Learning and Capacity Building for Civil Society (CESC) in Mozambique. He has solid experience in managing projects related to civic engagement at the national, district, and municipal levels. He holds an MA in Public Policy and Management, an Hons. Public Administration degree, and a BA in Political Science, from University Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique. He writes about and is in interested in subjects linked to democracy, decentralisation, and institutionalism.
Nasiru Sa'adu Fakai is a development professional with master's degrees in Development Studies and Information Management, both from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He has extensive experience of monitoring and evaluation (M&E), knowledge management (KM), and value-for-money assessment of health programmes in Nigeria. He has experience in M&E of HIV/AIDS, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), family planning, malaria, Human Resource for Health (HRH) production, and water and sanitation programmes. Nasiru is currently the M&E/KM and Value for Money Advisor with the Women for Health (W4H) DFID-funded programme that supports the increase in numbers of female health workers in Northern Nigeria.
Walter Flores is the director of the Center for the Study of Equity and Governance in Health Systems (CEGSS), a Guatemalan civil society organisation (CSO) specialising in applied research, capacity building, and advocacy around issues affecting indigenous population rights. He is also a steering committee member of the Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health (COPASAH), a global network of CSOs working towards improving health-care services for marginalised populations through human rights, accountability, and social mobilisation. He holds a PhD and an MCommH from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK. Alison Hernández is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Equity and Governance in Health Systems (CEGSS) in Guatemala. She is a nurse and public health scientist with over ten years' experience in global health nursing and health systems research. She completed her PhD in Public Health at Umea University, Sweden. Her current work focuses on applying systems-thinking methods to strengthen citizen-led accountability initiatives.
Rekha Khatri has been working as a researcher in the health sector in Nepal. She has been part of several research studies, ranging from tuberculosis, migration and health, adolescents' sexual and reproductive health, nutrition, and maternal and child health. She has research interests in the areas of gender, development, governance, ethics, and political economy within the health sector and beyond.
Shweta Marathe has been working as a research officer with Support for Advocacy and Training to Health Initiatives (SATHI) since 2010. Building upon an academic background in health-care management, she has worked on studies of medicine availability, procurement systems, supplementary nutrition, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) system, budget plan preparation, and changes in the private health-care system. She was a fellow of the inaugural KEYSTONE course on Health Policy and Systems Research, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). Her research interests include community nutrition, and the public and private health-care system.
Abhijit More is a medical doctor and health activist. He works as a Senior Project Officer in Support for Advocacy and Training to Health Initiatives (SATHI), a Pune-based NGO in India. He is also a co-convener of Jan Arogya Abhiyan (Maharashtra State Chapter of the People's Health Movement, India) which is a network of CSOs working on health rights. He is involved in advocacy and campaigns for patients' rights, improving the public health-care system, regulation of the private health-care sector, and Universal Health Care in Maharashtra. He has written many newspaper articles on various issues of public health importance. Zainab Abdul Moukarim is an educationalist, communication expert, and gender specialist. She has worked in Nigeria in the education sector for over five years, and in development for ten years. She has experience in school management, tutoring both girls and young women in schools and communities. Her experience in Northern Nigeria's educational system has enabled her to deepen her knowledge and understanding further. Linked to this is Zainab's experience working in Northern Nigerian health programmes which are designed to increase women's access to services through strategies that promote gender empowerment, rights, and equity.
Erica Nelson is a historian and anthropologist of global health, combining longitudinal approaches to understanding change in health systems with participatory, ethnographic, and visual methods. She has worked in this field since receiving her PhD in 2008 (University of Wisconsin-Madison). She was a post-doctoral Research Fellow (University of Amsterdam, Institute for Social Science Research (2010-14)), leading the qualitative component of an adolescent sexual and reproductive health intervention in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador. She is currently a researcher in the Accountability for Health Equity programme at IDS. Erica is the executive producer of all multimedia content in this issue.
Alex Shankland is a Fellow at IDS. He has worked for more than two decades on health systems, indigenous and minority health, civil society, accountability, political representation and local governance, particularly in Brazil and Mozambique. He was co-founder of the IDS Rising Powers in International Development research programme, and is currently co-convenor of the IDS Accountability for Health Equity programme and Principal Investigator of the Economic and Social Research Council-Department for International Development (ESRC-DFID)-funded project 'Unequal Voices: The Politics of Accountability for Health Equity in Brazil and Mozambique', in partnership with N'weti (Mozambique) and CEBRAP (Brazil).
Jeevan Raj Sharma is a lecturer in South Asia and International Development at the University of Edinburgh. He has a broad range of research interests that include the politics, practices, and ethics of international development; the care and protection of low-income migrants; global health response; human rights documentation; NGOs; youth; and migration and border crossing. He is the author of Crossing the Border to India: Youth, Migration and Masculinities in Nepal (Temple University Press, 2018).
Abhay Shukla is a public health physician, working as Senior Programme Coordinator at Support for Advocacy and Training to Health Initiatives (SATHI), Maharashtra, India. He is a member of the National Health Mission Advisory Group for Community Action, and is a national convenor of the People's Health Movement, India. Abhay is co-author of Dissenting Diagnosis (Penguin, 2016) which exposes current malpractices in the private medical sector, and is involved in campaigns for the promotion of patients' rights, the social regulation of the private medical sector, networking of ethical doctors, and advocacy for Universal Health Care in India.

James Smith is Professor of African and Development Studies and
Vice Principal at the University of Edinburgh. He has published widely on the relationship between scientific research, technological innovation, and international development. Much of his work has focused on sub-Saharan Africa (especially South Africa and Eastern Africa). He is particularly interested in exploring global networks and the assemblages of technology, knowledge, and values that shape global health and development interventions. His current research uses African trypanosomiasis as a lens to explore transnational systems of innovation, and to understand how they influence and are influenced by global policy contexts and local practices.
Emma Michelle Taylor is a Research Fellow on the European Research Council (ERC)-funded project 'Investigating Networks of Zoonosis Innovation' (INZI), which aims to analyse the complex interplay of actors, policies, and projects that have shaped research into and control of African trypanosomiasis until the present day. Aligned with this project, she has broad interests in neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), One Health, drug discovery, and the development of new drugs and diagnostics for infectious diseases. She is also interested in issues around global health (politics, partnerships, policy, and financing), development coordination, and aid effectiveness in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sally Theobald is a Professor in Social Science and International Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK. She has a master's degree in Gender and Development, a PhD in Gender, Health and Development and over 20 years' experience of research, training, and partnership on gender equity and health systems strengthening in Africa and Asia. She is part of Research in Gender and Ethics (RinGs): Building Stronger Health Systems, and is a Visiting Fellow at IDS.
Tassiana Tomé is a sociologist and anthropologist who currently works as learning and advocacy officer at the Centre for Learning and Capacity Building for Civil Society (CESC) in Mozambique. She also has experience in project management related to civic engagement and social accountability in the education and health sector. She holds a master's degree in Development and Globalization from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and is particularly interested in subjects linked to democracy, gender equality, social movements, and post-colonial and decolonial studies.
Linda Waldman is a Research Fellow in the Health and Nutrition Cluster, and Director of Teaching and Learning at IDS. As a social anthropologist, her research is focused on the intersections between health, poverty, gender, and policy. She has researched indigenous people; farm workers and adolescence; peri-urban ecosystems and sustainability; asbestos-related diseases; zoonotic disease; and information and communications technologies (ICTs) and health systems, and has research experience in Africa, South Asia, and the UK.