Ideas to Action:

Independent research for global prosperity

December 2008

Share
Print

You’ll notice a few changes in this edition of the CGD Global Health Policy E-newsletter. On the advice of CGD’s crackerjack Communications Team, we’ve shortened the number and length of items in the newsletter. Where there’s more content than a short blurb allows, you can click on the links to the CGD website and read on. We’re also experimenting with greater newsletter frequency so we can still tell you all the interesting things we’re doing (don’t tell the Comm Team!).


Please drop us a line to tell us what you think of these changes, or to share any other thoughts about the CGD Global Health Policy E- newsletter.


All the best,


Rachel and CGD’s Global Health Team


IN THIS ISSUE




ALSO OF INTEREST




In This Issue


UNAIDS 2.0: The Next Generation

With the selection of Michel Sidibé as its next Executive Director, a new chapter starts for UNAIDS. To provide an independent perspective on the role, priorities, and activities of UNAIDS in the future, CGD teamed with Oxford University’s Global Economic Governance Programme to convene the UNAIDS Leadership Transition Working Group. The Working Group has held three consultation sessions in Washington, DC; Oxford, UK; and Durban, South Africa in the last few months. Its final report will highlight recommendations for the next Executive Director and Board of UNAIDS. Please watch CGD’s website in January 2009 for the report.



Demographics for Development Initiative Features Infrastructure Needs
On December 15, 2008, CGD will present the second lecture in the "Demographics and Development in the 21st Century” series. Professor Peter Heller of SAIS/Johns Hopkins University (formerly Deputy Director of the IMF) will address the question: How Much Do Demographic Factors Influence Infrastructure Demand in Developing Countries? Register for the event online and find out more about past and future lectures in the series on the initiative website.



Inaugural CGD Policy Memo Urges President-Elect Obama to Act on Access to PEPFAR Data
CGD issued its first-ever policy memo on World AIDS Day (December 1st). In it, Nandini Oomman, director of the HIV/AIDS Monitor, urged President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team to release program and expenditure data for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) quickly after taking office. Releasing the data—which have already been collected at taxpayer expense—would enable better analysis on the impact of the billions of dollars that the United States spends to help developing countries address the pandemic.



Drug Resistance Working Group (DRWG) Consultation Draft Report Available Soon
The DRWG’s work is reaching a crescendo this month: completing a draft report and gearing up for the final meeting of the full working group (Dec. 11-12 near Washington, DC). The working group will meet to coalesce around a set of recommendations for key policy action to stem the problem of global drug resistance. To learn more about the working group, and to review its draft recommendations, visit the DR site in January 2009 or sign up for the monthly DRWG e-newsletter.



Will Obama take up the idea of a “Global Health Corps?”
In CGD’s The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President (edited by Nancy Birdsall), Senior Fellow Mead Over proposed the formation of a Global Health Corps of Americans who would work abroad to improve health in the developing world. Several individuals and groups with similar ideas have contacted CGD. They included: Professor Fitzhugh Mullen, lead author of an IOM report which proposed “Healers Abroad: American Responding to the Human Resource Crisis in HIV/AIDS;” the Brookings Institute’s Lex Rieffel and David Caprara, who are leading the “Initiative on International Volunteering and Service”; Kathryn Johnson, who is working on modernizing international health service models at the Center for Global Service; and Dr. Randy Sherman, Chief Medical Officer of Operation Smile, which coordinates medical missions around the globe to heal children with facial deformities. In addition, former Senator Bill Frist is working with the Clinton Global Initiative to create a Leadership Corps to recruit U.S. healthcare executives to improve health care management in developing countries. Their messages ranged from: “How can we help?” to “Great idea! Join us.”


Will the idea of a Global Health Corps find a constituency in the face of so many competing U.S. priorities? How could a Global Health corps best be grafted onto the US’s complex foreign assistance bureaucracy? The CGD’s health team is ready to work with others to answer these questions for the new administration. We welcome more comments and feedback. Send them to Mead Over.


Also of Interest



In the Media




Past Events




Global Health Policy Blog




CGD Newsletters and Event Invitations
If you like our Global Health Policy E-newsletter, you may also want to sign up for other CGD e-mail including our weekly Development Update, invitations to our lively and informative events, and occasional newsletters on such topics as impact evaluation, climate change, drug resistance, and the HIV/AIDS Monitor. It’s easy to subscribe or unsubscribe and we promise never to share your e-mail address. Click here to learn more and sign up.