Ruth Levine

Haitian girls and young women living in Port-au-Prince are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection, with a much higher HIV prevalence than the general population. Since the early 1980s, the Haitian Study Group on Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections (GHESKIO) has provided care for HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), diarrhea, and tuberculosis (TB) through its community- and clinic-based services. In her presentation, Dr. Marie Marcelle Deschamps, Secretary General of GHESKIO, will discuss the successes and limitations of GHESKIO's work to curb HIV infection among adolescent girls--with a specific emphasis on the challenges of working with a population with high levels of poverty and violence.

Join us as we launch CGD's newest report, Start With A Girl: A New Agenda For Global Health. The report, supported by the Nike Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a complement to the 2008 publication, Girls Count: An Action and Investment Agenda, and is part of a series of publications about adolescent girls' education, health, and economic empowerment in the developing world. Start with a Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health conveys the importance of adolescent girls’ health as part of a broad human rights and economic development agenda and highlights the ways in which the health risks faced by girls can be addressed through specific, high-impact actions by the international community, national governments, and civil society. Ambassador of Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer will describe the administration's commitment to girls' wellbeing in developing countries, including the State Department’s current efforts and future plans. Following Ambassador Verveer’s address, authors Ruth Levine and Miriam Temin will give a brief overview of the contents of the report and a preview of the eight recommendations for promoting adolescent girls' health. This will be followed by a lively panel discussion.

The past decade has seen remarkable increases in the amount of funding for global health, and fundamental shifts in how that money is deployed. New institutions have emerged, and the "rules of the game" in international health have been rewritten. As global health has taken center stage in development aid policies, important questions have emerged about the appropriate role of public and private donors, the potential and limits of technology, and how priorities are established. In this talk, Ruth Levine will discuss the major forces in global health, and highlight some of the major issues and very tough choices now facing the international community.

An estimated shortage of over 4 million doctors, nurses and other health workers in developing countries acts as a major roadblock to economic and human development. Working in Health considers the fiscal issues in expanding the health workforce and the policy options available to governments. Through case studies in the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zambia, it also examines recruitment, promotion, and pay policies in the public sector and their important influence on health workforce performance.

At their Washington Summit in 2008, G20 political leaders highlighted child survival, maternal mortality and the response to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics among their commitments. Yet, just six months later, in London in April 2009, health was hardly in evidence. As the G20 leaders prepare to gather in Pittsburgh, it is worth asking: Should health matter to the economic and environmental agenda outlined by the G20? The answer should be a resounding yes. This seminar will reflect on key issues on the global health agenda, including women and girls, and the challenges of maintaining momentum during economic crisis.

Today in sub-Saharan Africa, 61 percent of all people infected with HIV are women, and women age 15-24 are the most vulnerable to infection. Women and girls are at greater risk of HIV infection in part due to power imbalances between women and men that limit the social and economic choices that women have--including choices about marriage, work, and the conditions of their sexual relationships. To better fight HIV/AIDS and to more effectively prevent its spread, countries and their global HIV/AIDS partners must address the increased risks, vulnerabilities, and consequences of HIV infection that are due to gender inequalities. A new CGD HIV/AIDS Monitor report finds that while the three large and influential donors--the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the World Bank's Africa Multi-Country AIDS Program (the MAP)--have made high-level commitments around gender, these commitments have not yet translated into concrete and systematic action on the ground--financially or programmatically--in Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia. Join us for our report launch, where the authors, country-level officials, and representatives from the three donors will discuss and respond to key findings and recommendations.

GIS is becoming increasingly popular in health care research in recent years. Typical GIS-based studies include an analysis such as “hot-spot” analysis that detects clusters of an infectious disease, simulation of a disease spread, or demand & supply analysis that identifies geographical areas with over- / under- utilization of services. Naoru Koizumi, Assistant Professor of School of Public Policy at George Mason University and an expert in GIS and spatial statistics, will provide an overview of GIS applications in health care using her recent and ongoing projects as the examples.

What will it take to improve the performance of health systems in low-income countries -- to increase the use of essential preventive services like immunization and prenatal care, to ensure adherence to TB and AIDS treatment, to reduce health worker absenteeism and to improve the use of data for decision-making? As donors, national governments and NGOs seek innovative ways to use resources to strengthen health care delivery, opportunities exist to go beyond traditional input-oriented approaches of buying drugs, building facilities, and training staff. Introducing performance incentives, in which a reward is provided to providers, patients or both when health-related targets are achieved, has dramatically improved key health indicators in a range of settings. In a new book from CGD, Rena Eichler, Ruth Levine and members of the Working Group on Performance-based Incentives take a close look at the pioneering experiences with supply- and demand-side incentives, and draw conclusions about the ways in which performance incentives can be used as part of a broad strategy for system strengthening--as well as the mistakes to avoid in design and implementation. Join us for the launch event of Performance Incentives for Global Health: Potential and Pitfalls and the ensuing discussion about real-world application of performance incentives.

The Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Committee on the U.S. Commitment to Global Health is releasing its final report on May 20, which is expected to address the case for a deeper commitment to global health by the U.S. and communicate specific recommendations pertaining to the government, academia, the public health and scientific research communities, the diplomatic and national security communities, the private sector, civil society and foundations. To follow-up on this release, the Kaiser Family Foundation will hold a live, interactive webcast on Thursday, May 21 at 12 p.m. ET from its Washington, DC studio, to discuss what the report results will likely mean for the U.S. government's response to global health.

Please join us for a discussion with Dr. Alan Whiteside, where he will examine the origins of AIDS exceptionalism and how it has helped and hindered our response to the epidemic. Whiteside will ask if exceptionalism is still a useful concept in light of our current knowledge about the epidemic, the global financial crisis and changes in health governance. Nandini Oomman and Mead Over from the Center for Global Development will serve as discussants for what promises to be a fascinating conversation.