You are here
Millions Saved
In three editions, CGD authors showcase more than 30 rigorously evaluated case studies of successful interventions, upending conventional pessimism about public health challenges in developing countries and drawing broad lessons about what works in global health. With a foreword by Bill Gates, Millions Saved is a key resource for health policy decision makers, implementers and students worldwide.
Contact
Rachel Silverman
rsilverman@cgdev.org
Related Experts
Parent Topic
Related Millions Saved Content
The Center for Global Development book, Millions Saved: New Cases of Proven Success in Global Health, authored by Amanda Glassman and Miriam Temin with the Millions Saved team, chronicles a global revolution from the ground up. It showcases 18 remarkable cases in which large-scale efforts to improve health in developing countries succeeded and 4 cases in which promising interventions fell short of their health targets when scaled up. Each case demonstrates how much effort is required to fight illness and sustain good health.
Over the past 15 years, people in low- and middle-income countries have experienced a health revolution – one that has created new opportunities and brought new challenges. It is a revolution that keeps mothers and babies alive, helps children grow, and enables adults to thrive. A new Center for Global Development book, Millions Saved: New Cases of Proven Success in Global Health, authored by Amanda Glassman and Miriam Temin with the Millions Saved team, chronicles this global revolution from the ground up. It showcases 18 remarkable cases in which large-scale efforts to improve health in developing countries succeeded and 4 cases in which promising interventions fell short of their health targets when scaled up. Each case demonstrates how much effort is required to fight illness and sustain good health.
Millions Saved is a collection of success stories in global health—remarkable cases in which large-scale efforts to improve health in developing countries have succeeded.
Over the past 15 years, people in low- and middle-income countries have experienced a health revolution - one that has created new opportunities and brought new challenges. It is a revolution that keeps mothers and babies alive, helps children grow, and enables adults to thrive.
A mass vaccination campaign across Africa virtually wipes out Meningitis A in participating countries. A new helmet law in Vietnam prevents thousands of accidents and deaths. A cash transfer program for caregivers of orphans in Kenya leads to higher school attendance and lower teen pregnancy rates. What do all these have in common?
They’re all large-scale programs to improve public health that were hugely successful. And now, they’re all case studies in CGD’s newest edition of Millions Saved, a collection of success stories in global health. The book rigorously evaluates 22 programs from Haiti to Botswana, Peru to Pakistan, in order to understand what works in global health and why.
As Bill Gates says in his foreword to the book, “the more information we can gather and share, the better decisions we can make and the more impact we can have.”
Millions Saved was coauthored by CGD’s Vice President for Programs and Director of Global Health Policy Amanda Glassman, who joins me on this week’s podcast to share some of the book’s cases and takeaways. Among the takeaways: successful international coordination is key, and delivery matters.
“There is still a job to be done. There is still a lot of preventable death and disability,” Glassman tells me. “But that said, we looked at these at-scale programs that really made a difference for people’s health.”
How much of a difference?
“We calculate just a few of the cases in our book that we feature saved about 18 million years of life, that otherwise would have been lost due to preventable causes,” Glassman says.
Millions Saved is available for pre-order and will be released on April 26th. In the meantime, visit the Millions Saved website for a sneak peek at the cases discussed.
Over the past decade we’ve seen major progress in fighting some of the world’s worst health scourges: AIDS deaths are on the decline, polio has been eliminated in all but two countries, more people have access to healthcare. This is cause for optimism.
To build on these successes—and do an even better job moving forward—we need to reflect on what has been working in global health and what has not. That’s why, in our newest edition of Millions Saved, we’ve taken a hard look at 22 global health programs implemented in low- and middle-income countries in the last 10 years. In each case we describe what worked and what can be learned for other settings and disease issues.
The stories are as compelling as they are diverse:
A coalition of governments, foundations, researchers, and drug companies developed and deployed an effective vaccine for meningitis A, and the disease has been all but eliminated in endemic African countries. A cash transfer program in Kenya has reduced the odds of risky sexual behavior and improved the wellbeing of children who were orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Argentina rolled out a health coverage scheme that ensures coverage for poor pregnant women and children and that uses incentives to get provinces and healthcare providers to participate in the scheme. The program has led to a steep decline in neonatal mortality. Vietnam passed a law that incentivized motorcyclists to wear a helmet, reducing the risk of road traffic deaths and preventing serious injuries.The new edition features 18 brand new case studies of global health interventions that were successful at large scale and in many cases implemented at remarkably low cost. They are examples of where the global health community’s combined resources, expertise, savvy, and evidence improved the lives of real men, women, and children. With all hands on deck—governments and donors, researchers and implementers, health workers and advocates all aligned to a common goal—Millions Saved case studies show that the global health community can tackle even the most stubborn causes of disease and injury.
Yet as Millions Saved gives cause for optimism, it also illustrates the dangers of complacency. In this edition of the book we also profile four cases of disappointment at scale—that is, interventions or programs that should have improved health, at least on paper, but didn’t move the needle under real-world conditions. These cases teach us that we will need sustained political commitment, funding, and monitoring to keep up the good work for future generations. And although knowledge has accumulated, too many programs still begin and end without a rigorous evaluation, limiting our collective ability to learn from both our successes and our miscalculations.
We’ve learned a lot from compiling Millions Saved, and now we’re excited to share those lessons with you. We encourage you to check out our new microsite dedicated to the project and to pre-order your copy of the book. And head over to The Guardian to read a piece by Amanda—the kick-off to Health Revolution, a series on Millions Saved that will run through September. There you can also watch a new video on the MenAfriVac vaccine (one of our featured cases) and an article on the importance of health data.
We also hope you’ll join us on Tuesday, April 5 to celebrate the release of this new Millions Saved edition—and more importantly, to recognize and honor the leaders, funders, managers, researchers, and frontline health workers who made these success stories possible. We’ll hear from Jamie Drummond who cofounded ONE, Abraham Aseffa who has been involved with MenAfriVac in Ethiopia, and Samuel Ochieng who is helping run a cash transfer program in Kenya. You can RSVP here to the event being held at CGD in Washington, DC or to watch the webcast.
Over the past 15 years, people in low- and middle-income countries have experienced a health revolution—one that has created new opportunities and brought new challenges. It is a revolution that keeps mothers and babies alive, helps children grow, and enables adults to thrive. Millions Saved, authored by Amanda Glassman and Miriam Temin with the Millions Saved team, chronicles this global health revolution from the ground up. It showcases 18 remarkable cases in which large-scale efforts to improve health in developing countries succeeded and 4 cases in which promising interventions fell short of their health targets when scaled-up. Each case demonstrates how much effort is required to fight illness and sustain good health.
Millions Saved 3 is coming soon — and in addition to scale and proven effectiveness, affordability and cost-effectiveness will take center stage as essential considerations for this new edition. Beyond including cost-effectiveness among our selection criteria for case studies, we also want to ensure readers are given full, appropriately contextualized information on the cost of these programs, helping them understand the relationship between the investments made and outcomes observed. To this end, we want every chapter to include a full profile of the program budget — an ambition that has proven surprisingly hard to achieve in practice.
This is where we turn to you, dear readers, for help. Are you familiar with these programs? And if so, do you know where we can track down more comprehensive budget data? Our highest priority is to flesh out the five cases listed below; we feel confident the data is out there somewhere, but so far our efforts to find it have fallen short. That said, tips for any of our case studies would be very welcome (full list here).
A Fresh Start for a Bright Future: Kenya’s School-Based Deworming Program The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness in Bangladesh Motivating Health Workers, Motivating Better Health: Rwanda’s Pay-for-Performance Scheme for Health Services Reducing the Cost of Institutional Delivery in Gujarat, India A Step Up for the Children Apartheid Left Behind: South Africa’s Child Support GrantSo what kinds of budget information would be helpful? In short, anything — beggars can’t be choosers. But in a perfect world, our wish list would include:
Overall project budgets, by year and/or in their totality. Bonus points for any further line item breakdowns (e.g., the split between program management versus field costs, commodity versus human resource costs, the cost of the impact evaluation, etc.) The breakdown of funding sources (i.e., the split of funding between various donors and governments) Contextual information on scale (e.g., budgets as a percent of government health expenditure or overall government revenue)Have any tips or ideas? We would be most grateful if you could send them our way, either in the comments or by email at rsilverman@cgdev.org. The better we understand the costs of these programs, the better we can make the case about how investments in health can pay dividends in terms of lives saved and healthy life years gained.
And for those of you eagerly awaiting the forthcoming third edition: we expect to release the book in early 2016, alongside a snazzy new webpage. Mark your calendars!
Commentary Menu