Advancing Global Health through Ambitious and Sustainable Programs

Global Health programs have been central to US foreign assistance in recent years, and stand out as examples how initiatives that include bold targets and results-driven funding can save lives and transform development paradigms.

In the coming year a series of new initiatives could dramatically strengthen US global health programs. The Obama administration’s announcement in May 2009 of a Global Health Initiative, efforts by the US Congress to reform foreign assistance and potentially re-write the foreign assistance act, and international efforts to expand global health initiatives and better coordinate global health aid all portend change.

In the US, a coalition of global health advocacy organizations has come together to consider how US development assistance for health should be structured in the future. Organizations focused on HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases, child health, maternal health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, health workforce, neglected diseases, and comprehensive primary healthcare have all joined in this process. Breaking down silos that too often prevent coordinated advocacy efforts, we hope to present a progressive vision of what the next phase of US global health support could look like, including:

• Ambitious scale up of US assistance for health that saves even more lives through new, innovative programming.
• New resources—with the US contributing its fair share to efforts—rather than taking from one area of promised support and giving to another.
• The US to lead the world to reach the health MDGs and do so in ways which build access to comprehensive primary healthcare and provide a rights-based approach to health for all people.
• Reform of US foreign assistance to ensure it is outcomes-driven, based on results for those most in need, and ambitiously aimed toward universal access.

www.TheGlobalHealthInitiative.org is a project of: