Global Health: 11 to Follow in 2011

Non-communicable diseases: a new Millennium Development Goal?

In 2010, we saw increased attention to cancer and other non-communicable diseases. Of about 7.6 million people who die of cancer every year, two-thirds come from developing countries. Expansion of cancer care and control in countries of low and middle income: a call to action, published in The Lancet in October (and authored by Paul Farmer, Julio Frenck and others) is, truly a call to action. The article focuses on a key message, the fact that low-resource countries that may not have a ready supply of oncologists and high-tech equipment can still employ efforts to prevent and treat cancer by empowering primary health workers and caregivers in general. The article laments the fact that the global health community seems to have accepted the idea that, for now, cancer cannot effectively be treated in developing countries, comparing the notion “to similarly unfounded arguments from more than a decade ago against provision of HIV treatment.”

In a resolution adopted last May, the UN recognizes “the enormous human suffering caused by non-communicable diseases” and links non-communicable disease to threatening internationally agreed upon goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, proposing the addition of indicators related to non-communicable diseases into the Millennium Goals monitoring system. This year, we will be following the lead-up to the United Nations’ First High-level Meeting on non-communicable diseases, scheduled for September 2011.  We also will be looking at our own work, and ensuring that we are contributing to stronger health systems that can respond to non-communicable diseases. 

Country ownership—let’s get real

“Country ownership” has been talked about for years, but became an even more popular phrase in global health this past year. The Global Health Initiative highlights country ownership as one of its pillars of success, describing it as putting countries in charge of defining priorities, coordinating assistance, and managing health and development efforts.

John Donnelly produced a blog series for the Aspen Institute’s Ministerial Leadership Initiative, In the Driver’s Seat: A Series on Country Ownership of Health Programs, in which he interviewed eight leaders on the “next steps in giving countries what they crave:  ownership of their health programs.”  Key lessons emerged:  donors and implementers need to listen to in-country experts and authorities, the private sector and civil society (local and international NGOs) have key roles to play and, perhaps most importantly, countries themselves need to take the lead with strategic planning and unified national programs.

We hope that the global health community will seriously consider the issues raised by Donnelly’s series and echoed in countless stakeholder meetings and conferences around the world. Giving countries “what they crave” will require a new paradigm on the part of all stakeholders—donors, implementers, and the countries in which development funds are invested.  As Nigel Crisp notes in the recently released book, Turning the world upside down—the search for global health in the 21^st century, we need a new paradigm because “there is much to learn from each other . . . should we not be talking about our shared health issues, and taking this further, not about development but about co-development?”

Americans supportive of global health

In September, the Kaiser Family Foundation released the results of its recent survey on foreign aid.[1]  (Ezra Klein of the Washington Post reported on the results in December in a nifty simplified graph.) The poll found that many Americans hold negative misperceptions about “foreign aid,” but are more supportive of such efforts when described more specifically as “improving health in developing countries.”

Six in 10 Americans (61%) say the U.S. spends too much, and four in 10 incorrectly think that foreign aid is one of the two biggest areas of spending in the federal budget. In comparison, when asked about “improving health in developing countries,” only 28 percent say the U.S. spends too much, while nearly two thirds say such spending is too little (23%) or about right (42%).

According to the poll, most Americans think that 25% to 30% of our national budget is spent on foreign aid, and say, on average, that our country should spend about 10% of the budget on foreign aid.  But in r

Non-communicable diseases: a new Millennium Development Goal?

In 2010, we saw increased attention to cancer and other non-communicable diseases. Of about 7.6 million people who die of cancer every year, two-thirds come from developing countries. Expansion of cancer care and control in countries of low and middle income: a call to action, published in The Lancet in October (and authored by Paul Farmer, Julio Frenck and others) is, truly a call to action. The article focuses on a key message, the fact that low-resource countries that may not have a ready supply of oncologists and high-tech equipment can still employ efforts to prevent and treat cancer by empowering primary health workers and caregivers in general. The article laments the fact that the global health community seems to have accepted the idea that, for now, cancer cannot effectively be treated in developing countries, comparing the notion “to similarly unfounded arguments from more than a decade ago against provision of HIV treatment.”

In a resolution adopted last May, the UN recognizes “the enormous human suffering caused by non-communicable diseases” and links non-communicable disease to threatening internationally agreed upon goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, proposing the addition of indicators related to non-communicable diseases into the Millennium Goals monitoring system. This year, we will be following the lead-up to the United Nations’ First High-level Meeting on non-communicable diseases, scheduled for September 2011.  We also will be looking at our own work, and ensuring that we are contributing to stronger health systems that can respond to non-communicable diseases. 

Country ownership—let’s get real

“Country ownership” has been talked about for years, but became an even more popular phrase in global health this past year. The Global Health Initiative highlights country ownership as one of its pillars of success, describing it as putting countries in charge of defining priorities, coordinating assistance, and managing health and development efforts.

John Donnelly produced a blog series for the Aspen Institute’s Ministerial Leadership Initiative, In the Driver’s Seat: A Series on Country Ownership of Health Programs, in which he interviewed eight leaders on the “next steps in giving countries what they crave:  ownership of their health programs.”  Key lessons emerged:  donors and implementers need to listen to in-country experts and authorities, the private sector and civil society (local and international NGOs) have key roles to play and, perhaps most importantly, countries themselves need to take the lead with strategic planning and unified national programs.

We hope that the global health community will seriously consider the issues raised by Donnelly’s series and echoed in countless stakeholder meetings and conferences around the world. Giving countries “what they crave” will require a new paradigm on the part of all stakeholders—donors, implementers, and the countries in which development funds are invested.  As Nigel Crisp notes in the recently released book, Turning the world upside down—the search for global health in the 21^st century, we need a new paradigm because “there is much to learn from each other . . . should we not be talking about our shared health issues, and taking this further, not about development but about co-development?”

Americans supportive of global health

In September, the Kaiser Family Foundation released the results of its recent survey on foreign aid.[1]  (Ezra Klein of the Washington Post reported on the results in December in a nifty simplified graph.) The poll found that many Americans hold negative misperceptions about “foreign aid,” but are more supportive of such efforts when described more specifically as “improving health in developing countries.”

Six in 10 Americans (61%) say the U.S. spends too much, and four in 10 incorrectly think that foreign aid is one of the two biggest areas of spending in the federal budget. In comparison, when asked about “improving health in developing countries,” only 28 percent say the U.S. spends too much, while nearly two thirds say such spending is too little (23%) or about right (42%).

According to the poll, most Americans think that 25% to 30% of our national budget is spent on foreign aid, and say, on average, that our country should spend about 10% of the budget on foreign aid.  But in reality, only about 1% of our national budget is spent on foreign aid.[2]

This leads us to wonder: are we telling our stories in the right way to reach the right people?  Do Americans realize how much can be—and is being—accomplished with, relatively, so little? In 2011, ABC news is running a year-long series on global health; we will be watching attentively.  And we hope that we can all, in sharing our success stories and lessons learned, contribute to greater awareness of—and passion about—global health.

[1] Source: Americans Remain Wary of “Foreign Aid” But Are More Supportive of Spending to Improve Health Abroad, Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010

[2] Source: CNN Fact Check, February 2010

eality, only about 1% of our national budget is spent on foreign aid.[2]

This leads us to wonder: are we telling our stories in the right way to reach the right people?  Do Americans realize how much can be—and is being—accomplished with, relatively, so little? In 2011, ABC news is running a year-long series on global health; we will be watching attentively.  And we hope that we can all, in sharing our success stories and lessons learned, contribute to greater awareness of—and passion about—global health.