This week sees the publication of From Promises to Progress, a new report on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), a group of 17 infectious diseases that between them affect over 1.4 billion of the poorest people in the world.

As representatives of the World Health Organization Member States arrive in Geneva this week for the 65th World Health Assembly, I feel a cautious optimism about the future, and the future health of Africa. With two female heads of state in Africa - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia and Joyce Banda in Malawi - women's health and gender equality are no longer marginalised, they have become central to a nation's potential for development and prosperity. National level attention to women's health and opportunity has become the standard against which our collective progress is judged.