Aug 18, 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discusses the Obama administration’s Global Health Initiative

On Monday, August 15, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked about the Obama administration's Global Health Initiative. A video and transcript of her speech is available on the US State Department website.

Sarah Wildman provides an overview of Secretary Clinton's speech on Politics Daily.

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked about the Obama administration’s Global Health Initiative, and its goal “to save the greatest possible number of lives, both by increasing our existing health programs and by building upon them to help countries develop their own capacity to improve the health of their own people.”  Clinton proposed six key elements:  1) working with countries to create and implement strategies for health based on their own needs and existing strengths, and helping them build capacity manage, oversee, coordinate, and operate health programs; 2) focusing on the needs and contributions of women and girls; 3) improving measurement and evaluation; 4) investing in innovation, especially tools that will help diagnose, prevent, and cure disease in communities that are often remote and poor in resources; 5) improving coordination and integration, including aligning all U.S. Government programs within a country and in Washington; and 6) working with existing partners and seeking out new ones.   Clinton’s visionary speech provided additional detail on the overall coordination of the initiative, which she said would be “under the guidance and direction of Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew.”   It didn’t, however, provide much detail as to how the GHI will be designed, funded and implemented.

IntraHealth's Director of Strategic Communications, Laura Hoemeke, discussed Secretary Clinton's speech further in her blog post.

Posted by at 08:15 AM