It’s hard to see your way through a storm when you’re in the middle of one. Such is the predicament of the global health community, as we sort out what the financial crisis will mean for the health of poor people in developing countries months – even years from now.

The nine-day strike followed years of pressure from the Living Wage Coalition, a student group founded in 2001 several months after a similar organization at Harvard succeeded in raising the minimum wage for their campus employees.