Global Prosperity Wonkcast

Lawrence MacDonald, CGD vice president for communications and policy outreach, interviews a CGD expert in this weekly Podcast. The blog offers a short text summary.

Achieving an AIDS Transition - Mead Over

12/3/12

Lawrence MacDonald

This podcast was originally recorded in November 2011.

My guest this week is Mead Over, one of the world’s leading experts on the global response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. We discuss his new book, Achieving an Aids Transition: Preventing Infections to Sustain Treatment. The key idea is simple but powerful. Mead argues that, instead of reaching vainly for the unsustainable goal of offering treatment to everyone in the developing world who needs it, donor policy should aim to sustain current treatment levels while reducing the number of new infections below the number of AIDS deaths, so that the total number of people with HIV/AIDS declines.

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The Global Fund and Value for Money – Amanda Glassman

9/5/12

Lawrence MacDonald

In this austere budget climate, generating “value for money” (VFM) is a top concern for global health funding agencies and their donors, who want the biggest bang for their buck in terms of lives saved and diseases controlled. To this end, CGD has convened a working group to help shape the VFM agenda for global health funding agencies, with a particular focus on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Leading these efforts is my guest this week, Amanda Glassman, a senior fellow and director of the global health policy program at the Center for Global Development.

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International AIDS Conference and the AIDS Transition--Mead Over and Jenny Ottenhoff

7/16/12

Lawrence MacDonald

Mead Over

Next week the International AIDS Conference will be held in the United States for the first time in 20 years. CGD senior fellow Mead Over, one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of the epidemic, and policy outreach associate Jenny Ottenhoff join me this week to discuss the state of the epidemic, budget austerity, and the US role in the global response.

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HIV/AIDS Donors and Africa’s Health Workforce: Nandini Oomman

9/8/10

Lawrence MacDonald

My guest this week is Nandini Oomman, Director of the Center for Global Development’s HIV/AIDS Monitor.

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Turning the Tide through Better Prevention: Mead Over on the AIDS Transition

7/27/10

Lawrence MacDonald

The Wonkcast is taking a brief summer vacation. We've selected this show from our archives- it was originally posted on May 25, 2010.

Even as the cost of treating HIV/AIDS has fallen dramatically, the number of people newly infected has remained high. What can be done to reverse this trend and finally defeat this disease? This week on the Wonkcast, I’m joined by Mead Over, a senior fellow here at the Center for Global Development and perhaps the world’s leading expert on the economics of HIV/AIDS. He has recently published two major essays, which introduce the concept of the “AIDS transition”—the point in time where the number of people living with the disease begins to fall. He argues persuasively that to reach this point, international donors must greatly strengthen incentives for effective prevention.

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When Medicines Fail: Rachel Nugent on Combating Drug Resistance

6/15/10

Lawrence MacDonald

This week on the Wonkcast, I'm joined by Rachel Nugent, Deputy Director for Global Health here at the Center for Global Development. She is the lead author on a new CGD working group report entitled The Race Against Drug Resistance, which prescribes a global effort to halt and reverse the spread of drug resistant microbes.

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Turning the Tide through Better Prevention: Mead Over on the AIDS Transition

5/25/10

Lawrence MacDonald

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Development and Obama’s Budget; Interview with CGD’s Sarah Jane Staats

2/10/10

Lawrence MacDonald

I'm joined for this week’s CGD Wonkcast by Sarah Jane Staats, director of policy outreach here at the Center for Global Development. Last week, President Obama released his proposed budget for the next fiscal year. Sarah Jane and others here at the Center have been poring over the budget request, examining what signals the budget sends on the administration's approach to development.