Global Health Policy Research Network

After a decade of rapid economic growth, many developing countries have attained middle-income status, but poverty reduction in these countries has not kept pace with economic growth. Most of the world’s poor—up to a billion people—now live in these new middle-income countries. These...

Countries in the developing world face numerous health and population related challenges. This course will examine these issues with an emphasis on how you as an actor in the health and population sector can intervene to improve health conditions for the poor.

In the final installation of a three-part series, Mead Over estimates the fiscal burden of international AIDS treatment programs, and suggests ways that donors, governments, and patients can sustain current treatments while preventing future cases.

This essay proposes ways to improve the effectiveness of HIV prevention by strengthening incentives for both measurement and achievement. It builds upon a companion essay that proposes an “AIDS Transition”—that is, a gradual reduction in the number of people infected with HIV even as those...

Recognizing the donors’ obligation to sustain financing for the millions of AIDS patient who would not be alive today without it, this essay proposes a dynamic paradigm for the struggle with the AIDS epidemic—“the AIDS transition” —and argues that to most rapidly achieve an AIDS...

Donor spending on global health has surged, yet for many poor people in developing countries even basic prevention and treatment remain elusive. CGD’s newest book, Performance Incentives for Global Health: Potential and Pitfalls, shows how modest payments in cash or kind can get more health from...

CGD policy analyst Lindsay Morgan summarizes the global health agendas various organizations have recommended to the Obama administration. She finds that the calls for a smarter, more harmonized, results-based global health agenda are clear.

Rena Eichler and Ruth Levine summarize the findings of their book, Performance Incentives for Global Health: Potential and Pitfalls. Through numerous case studies, they show that carefully designed and implemented performance-based incentive programs can improve developing country health care in...

Faced with many urgent challenges, the next U.S. president may be tempted to let global health issues bubble along on the back burner and simply allow reasonably well-funded programs that garner bipartisan support to continue unchanged. This would be a mistake. Instead, the president should set an...

U.S. global AIDS spending is helping to prolong the lives of more than a million people, yet this success contains the seeds of a future crisis. Escalating treatment costs coupled with neglected prevention measures mean that AIDS spending is growing so rapidly that it threatens to squeeze out U.S....

In 2004 a working group of experts was convened by the Center for Global Development to identify cases in which large-scale efforts to improve health in developing countries have succeeded—saving millions of lives and preserving the livelihoods and social fabric of entire communities. Seventeen...

This report of the CGD working group on IMF Programs and Health Spending explores the controversy that surrounds IMF-supported programs in low-income countries and their effect on the health sector. Critics contend that programs unduly constrain health spending though macroeconomic, especially...

This brief summarizes the findings of the CGD working group on IMF Programs and Health Spending, convened in fall 2006 to investigate the effect of International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs on health spending in low-income countries. The report offers clear, practical recommendations for...

Why do some serious health issues--such as HIV/AIDS--get considerable attention and others--such as malaria and collapsing health systems--very little? In this CGD brief, visiting fellow Jeremy Shiffman discusses nine factors that influenced the degree to which national leaders in five countries...

This report of CGD's Global Health Forecasting Working Group, which was convened in early 2006 by senior fellow and director of programs Ruth Levine to sort out why demand forecasting has been so problematic, provides an elegant analysis of the problem and a sensible agenda for action. Their report...

Achieving better health in poor countries depends in part on giving companies that produce drugs, vaccines and diagnostics incentives to invest in their production by improving their ability to forecast which products will be purchased by whom in what quantities. This brief reviews the findings of...

Developing countries, donor agencies, and private philanthropies devote about $500 billion a year to improve the health of people in the developing world. But the lack of timely, accurate information about how this money is spent is undermining its impact. This problem can be solved. A working...

This paper analyzes the use of incentives (money, food and other material goods) for patients and healthcare providers to improve tuberculosis detection and treatment. It finds that although managing the distribution of money and food can be complicated, performance-based incentives do work. It...

USAID launched a project in 1995 to deliver basic health services in Haiti. The project began by reimbursing NGOs for their expenditures, but evolved to include payments based partly on performance targets. The result: marked improvements in health, particularly in immunization coverage and...

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs are one way to create incentives for poor people to use preventive healthcare services. Evaluations show that CCT programs work, and their use is spreading rapidly throughout the developing world. This paper analyzes key features of CCT programs and offers...

Nicaragua was one of the first low-income countries to try a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. Under the program, poor families are paid for keeping their children in school and visiting preventive healthcare providers. Healthcare providers are paid based on their performance against...

Diarrheal diseases kill two million children a year in poor countries. Vaccination, oral rehydration therapy, breastfeeding, and micronutrient supplementation have been effective in saving lives but the continuing toll suggests that further investments are needed. In this CGD working paper,...

In response to both public health imperative and unprecedented political pressure, aid to fight HIV/AIDS has increased massively in recent years: global funding to combat the disease in low- and middle-income countries has more than tripled since 2001, from $2.1 billion to an estimated $8.9 billion...

The US Agency for International Development (USAID)--the largest bilateral donor to family planning programs in developing countries--has played a dominant role among donors as a source of money, information and ideas about family planning. In this Essay, CGD director of programs and senior fellow...

In its first four years, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has become one of the most important aid agencies in the world. As the Global Fund undergoes its first leadership transition, this CGD Working Group Report identifies seven tasks for the new Executive Director,...

In response to a request from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, CGD convened the Global Health Indicators Working Group to examine potential measures of a government's commitment to health. The group's report recommends eight indicators for consideration by the MCC and other donors as they...

Donors are considering committing in advance to purchase vaccines against diseases concentrated in low-income countries to spur research and development on vaccines for neglected diseases. How much money is needed? The authors of this paper find that a commitment comparable in size to the average...

Health care is no more immune to governance problems than any other sector. Numerous studies have documented such problems, for example, in the procurement of health supplies, in under-the-table payments for services, and in nurses and doctors who fail to show up at their clinics but nonetheless...

Making Markets for Vaccines: Ideas to Action presents the proposal from theory to practice, by showing how a commitment can be consistent with ordinary legal and budgetary principles. A draft contract term sheet is included, highlighting the key elements of a credible guarantee.

Millions Saved: Proven Success in Global Health is about part of that success story: 17 cases in which large-scale efforts to improve health in developing countries have succeeded - saving millions of lives and preserving the livelihoods and social fabric of entire communities.