Global wishes for 2024: Pay for family leave. Empower Black men. Respect rural voices

New Year's resolutions, it turns out, probably originate in the Global South. The Babylonians of 4,000 years ago threw a heck of a party on (their) New Year and would make promises to the gods to do various righteous actions.

Here at Goats and Soda, our New Year's tradition doesn't go back quite as far (dating to ca. 2022, some scholars say ...), but we are proud of it nonetheless: We ask global health and development leaders around the world to offer up a wish for the coming year. Through their responses, we can see the hope, determination and, sometimes, the frustration of these activists, scientists and thinkers.

Here are their global wishes for 2024.

My wish: Adopt paid family leave in the U.S. as most of the world already has

Thomas McDade, professor of anthropology and faculty fellow of the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, and co-director of the CIFAR Child and Brain Development Program

The United States is one of only seven countries globally — and the only rich country — without a national paid family leave policy. It should come as no surprise that compared with other high-income nations we have the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality, despite spending the largest share of our gross domestic product on health care.

Paid family leave — job protection with guaranteed income after having a baby—improves birth outcomes and lowers the risk of rehospitalization for mothers and infants, increases uptake of breastfeeding and pediatric vaccination schedules and reduces postpartum depression. Paid family leave is good for babies and their families, and it can go a long way toward reducing societal inequalities in maternal and infant health outcomes.

My hope is that 2024 is the year when