How Not To Be Overwhelmed By The Enormousness of Global Health
The To-do List For Creating The Future Of Global Health
“…but it takes so much money to solve global health problems. We need to improve the local economies and provide more funding to improve health systems.”
I hear some version of this argument at least once a day from my overwhelmed clients, students and colleagues. My first thought when I hear this is to think about the billions of dollars invested to fight AIDS, TB, malaria and polio and we are still not able to show we are even close to meeting the needs of everyone, nor how long it will take to get there.
What I typically say in response to the quote above is that despite all the money currently invested in global health, millions of men, women and children still die every year of preventable and treatable causes. Is more money the answer? Well, we may still need more money, but it is time to change the way global health is organized and coordinated, so the money we have used in the most effective way. Maybe we do not need more money to fund new initiatives but for a global strategy and a global plan to coordinate and account for the work done by thousands of organizations, government agencies, private donors, and the countries themselves. In this way, global health can progressively deliver sustainable solutions and strengthen a country’s ability to sustainably deliver quality healthcare to all. Coordination and accountability are the new roles WHO must effectively play to start creating the future of global health, one that is truly, and effectively, global.
Here is the to-do list for WHO to coordinate. It will also help prevent us getting overwhelmed and not taking effective coordinated action:
- Every country must have a national health plan that progressively improves the quality of healthcare in at least 10% of the country’s government-run health facilities over the next 10 years.
- Every health facility must be the management center of a number of community-based and oriented preventive and health promotion programs in their coverage area.
- All donors, partners, international lending and development banks must contribute to help the country they are assisting to achieve this improvement.
- Every country must have a national accreditation and regulation program to improve the quality of care delivered by all of its private healthcare providers.
- No excuses.
That is it. It is simple, though, not easy. We need world coordination by WHO and the commitment of all those involved. Next week, I will tell you more about each item in this list; highlight why they are important, and how to achieve them so we can check off each task in our global health to-do list and actually realize global health.
If you want to learn more about improving aid effectiveness, I invite you to sign up for the free RGH webinar entitled “Aid Effectiveness in Global Health: Getting Back to Basics in Global Health”.
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