Who’s Blowing Smoke on Energy Poverty and the Global Disease Burden?
4/30/13
Me, perhaps. In my last post on why President Obama should make electricity his signature Africa policy initiative, I claimed:
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CGD Policy Blogs
Spotted: Development in the 2013 SOTU
2/13/13
My (low) expectations for the 2013 State of the Union address were happily exceeded when President Obama delivered an ambitious speech that spanned a myriad of US and foreign policy topics. Admittedly, most of his remarks on development were cleverly disguised as domestic issues. But the 100+ wonks gathered at CGD’s annual State of the Union Bingo event weren't fooled, as mentions of climate change, immigration and trade set ink daubers in motion and prompted victorious shouts o
Achieving an AIDS Transition - Mead Over
12/3/12
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.
Improving PEPFAR’s Data Management and Disclosure
11/13/12
The US government spends about $6.4 billion a year on preventing and treating HIV/AIDS in the developing world, and 4.5 million AIDS patients depend mostly on US generosity each day for the AIDS medicines that keep them alive.
Why Wait? Development Action Before Obama's Second Term
11/12/12
Although President Obama will be plenty busy during the remainder of his first term working with Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff, he need not wait until the start of his second term to further his vision for making US policy more supportive of global poverty reduction.
The Global Fund and Value for Money – Amanda Glassman
9/5/12
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.
International AIDS Conference and the AIDS Transition--Mead Over and Jenny Ottenhoff
7/16/12
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.
How Does HIV/AIDS Funding Affect a Country’s Health System?
5/10/12
Recently, the American Journal of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene published a paper by Shepard et al. evaluating the impact of HIV/AIDS funding on Rwanda’s health system. The headline of the press release was catchy and assertive: “Six-year Study in Rwanda Finds Influx of HIV/AIDS Funding Does Not Undermine Health Care Services for Other Diseases. Study Addresses Long-standing Debate about Funding Imbalances for Global Diseases.”
A Tale of Two Tipping Points – HIV/AIDS and USG Funding for Global Health
11/29/11
There is no doubt that the United States has shown tremendous leadership and brought about remarkable results in the global fight against AIDS over the past decade. U.S. investments through the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) have strengthened overall health systems, built and sustained capacity to address HIV and a host of other diseases, and helped scale up treatment to save millions of lives.
Are We Ready to Set Priorities for an AIDS-Free Generation?
11/11/11
Yesterday I attended the USAID and World Bank sponsored debate on “Treatment as Prevention,” where debaters were asked to support or oppose the proposition that countries should spend the majority of flat or declining HIV prevention budgets on “treatment as prevention”, building off the results of the HPTN 052 study which found a relative reduction of 89% in the total number of HIV-1 transmissions resulting from the early initiation of antiretroviral therapy.