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The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is moving to tackle one of the most difficult and important challenges of health policy: strengthening regional mechanisms for assessing which health technologies are cost effective and therefore appropriate for public funding. It's a sensitive issue that vexes poor and rich countries alike--including the United States. A recent PAHO resolution signed by the United States, Canada, and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean will strengthen a network created last year to improve the quality of Health Technology Assessment studies and their use in the allocation of public budgets.

Over the last 15 years, development economists have carefully accumulated rigorous evidence about what works and what does not in promoting health in poor countries. While each individual evaluation tests specific questions or sets of questions in specific contexts, the large number of studies now means that it is possible to draw more general conclusions. In addition, randomized evaluations are increasingly being designed to test fundamental questions about how people behave and thus generate lessons that are relevant for the design of different types of programs. In this seminar, Michael Kremer will discuss a new research paper co-authored with Rachel Glennerster, Lessons from Randomized Evaluations for Improving Health in Developing Countries, which summarizes lessons from the growing body of randomized evaluations of health programs in developing countries. The paper finds considerable evidence that consumers do not always invest optimally in health. In particular, consumers underinvest in cost-effective products for prevention and non-acute care of communicable disease and are very sensitive to the price and convenience of these products. This underinvestment does not simply reflect a lack of information of the benefits of preventative health. While this suggests the need for government intervention, many government health systems perform poorly and there is little accountability and few incentives for health care providers. Of the approaches designed to improve accountability, community or nongovernmental monitoring has had mixed results but district-level contracting has been quite successful. Many programs can improve health without excessive reliance on dysfunctional health delivery systems—delivering health products through schools for example, or improving health through water treatment.

In recent years the idea of strong health systems as a component of population health has been noted by both global health donors and national governments alike. Consequently, the question of how to measure the effectiveness of health systems interventions has become ever more pressing. But it remains unclear if efforts to assess health systems are providing enough information to establish a link between investments and improved health outcomes. How do we know if increased investments in the sector are creating the desired impact? This panel discussion will explore the linkage between health system strengthening activities and improving health outcomes and provide a platform for determining the efficacy of health systems investments. Panelists will address methodologies for analyzing health systems, beyond a mere compilation of indicators, and will explore innovative methods to measure health system performance.

Funding for HIV/AIDS has increased massively in the past few years. But is the money being used in the best possible way? In this short clip, CGD experts Nandini Oomman and Mead Over describe the HIV/AIDS monitor initiative which analyzes how PEPFAR, The Global Fund, and the World Bank deliver aid. The initiative has pushed for greater information disclosure and has made an impact on HIV/AIDS aid effectiveness.

The Center for Global Development is proud to have hosted Prof. Michael Kremer (Harvard) and Sarah Baird (GWU) as part of the Massachusetts Avenue Development Seminar (MADS) series.  They presented the long-term, follow-up results of Prof. Kremer's research on deworming in Kenyan schools that shows significant, long-term gains in employment and earnings among dewormed children.

CGD is pleased to host Sir Andrew Dillon, chief executive of the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), and Dr. Kalipso Chalkidou, Director of NICE International, to discuss the relevance of institutions such as NICE to improving value for money in health and the characteristics, strengths and limitations of current institutions in the developed and developing world.

The world is rapidly losing the ability to fight disease because of an invisible adversary: drug resistance. Resistance is inevitable but human actions are hastening it. Without a global effort to ensure lasting effectiveness of treatment, drug resistance is poised to get worse fast, raising costs, claiming more lives, and making future generations vulnerable to diseases that are easily cured today. After two years of study and analysis, CGD’s expert Drug Resistance Working Group urges four crucial steps to combat the problem in a pivotal new report, The Race Against Drug Resistance. On Tuesday, June 15, 2010 the Center for Global Development hosted the launch event of The Race Against Drug Resistance at the National Press Club.

The Center for Global Development's HIV/AIDS Monitor staff works with local researchers in three African countries -- Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia - to jointly plan the key research questions and