Global Health
The Development Challenge: In response to these increasingly difficult health challenges, USAID created the Bureau for Global Health (GH) to serve as the global leader in international public health and as the locus of technical leadership for USAID in health. USAID is recognized as a world leader in gh, including family planning, maternal health/child survival and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, and infectious diseases. As HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases continue to threaten the health of families and children in developing countries worldwide, USAID works to eliminate these threats and improve the health and livelihoods of people across the globe. Investing in the health of the world’s population contributes to global economic growth, reduction of poverty, a sustainable environment, and regional security. In addition to enhancing the lives of people overseas, with special emphasis on women and children, protecting human health and nutrition in developing and transitional countries directly affects public health in the United States by preventing the spread of infectious
Specifically, Global Health defines its three main roles as follows:
- High quality technical support to the field
- State-of-the-art research, innovation, and dissemination of innovation
- Global leadership
The USAID Program: GH has focused its resources and built its portfolio on the dynamic synergies of these three program elements and continues to expand and improve its programs to meet the changing public health needs and the realities of the field. Over the past year, GH has critically reviewed all its program activities, consolidated and refined approaches as appropriate, and expanded programs to meet new demands. The Bureau’s programs are directed toward achievements of the following five strategic objectives:
- Increased use by women and men of voluntary practices of family planning that reduce fertility
- Increased use of key maternal health and nutrition interventions
- Increased use of key child health and nutrition interventions
- Increased use of improved, effective and sustainable responses to reduce HIV transmission and to mitigate the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic
- Increased use of effective interventions to reduce the threat of infectious diseases of major public health importance
Other Program Elements: Currently GH has over 222 technical and program experts who manage a wide spectrum of diverse technical projects; provide technical support to USAID missions and field programs; garner support for our programs with stakeholders including the U.S. public and Congress; and nurture and galvanize stronger partnerships with the development community. This global leadership helps to achieve results by influencing the worldwide health agenda, increasing the likelihood of successful health programs, and encouraging the wider global community to adopt new technologies and approaches USAID priority areas.
GH follows a field-driven and field-centered approach to developing and testing new technologies and methodologies. GH develops new cost-effective, field-based tools such as rapid and simple HIV/STD diagnostics, new and improved contraceptive methods, and new approaches to addressing mother-to child transmission of HIV. Current staff members are dedicated to providing superior technical expertise, information, commodities, and services to support mission and country programs. GH programs are flexible and can respond rapidly to field needs, such as the rapid opening and closing of bilateral programs or rapid responses to emergencies such as hurricanes and earthquakes.
GH has become the repository for state-of-the-art information in biomedical, social science and operational research. It develops, tests, and disseminates new technologies and methodologies that contribute to successful field program implementation. GH is a pioneer in results monitoring and leads the work in the development of tools for program evaluation and trend analysis in the global health sector.
Other Donors: USAID has long recognized the valuable role that collaboration among many partners and stakeholders plays in the quest to achieve development objectives. Today, many new public and private partners are joining forces with traditional bilateral and multilateral donors to invest in global health. The international health-related expenditures of the top 10 private U.S. foundations now exceed U.S. government spending in this area. Accordingly, GH has refocused its efforts to develop strategic alliances with new public and private partners to bring substantial resources, ideas, and technologies to address global health issues. USAID has developed new ways of doing business in the development that involve working more closely with non-traditional partners and incorporating commercial sector strategies into global health programs. USAID engages in many successful types of public-private partnerships in its efforts to improve global health. Examples include the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM), the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the STOP TB Initiative, the Roll Back Malaria Initiative, and the Initiative for Contraceptive Security.
USAID’s long-standing partnerships with PVOs and NGOs enable the Agency to pursue its population, maternal health, child survival, HIV/AIDS, and infectious disease objectives in community-based programs worldwide. PVOs and NGOs have unique capabilities in mobilizing communities, reaching into households to change behaviors, working with socially marginalized groups, and helping empower those with limited access to modern health care. Examples of PVO partnership mechanisms include PVO Child Survival Grants and the PVO/NGO Core Fund.
Social marketing has long been an area of strength for USAID health programs. Social marketing helps increase the demand for and utilization of public health products. To improve prospects for sustainability, some GH programs are transitioning to a more commercial or “manufacturer’s model” of social marketing. Examples of such partnerships include NetMark and the Commercial Market Strategies (CMS) Project.
The primary objective of direct partnerships with private industry is to facilitate
the development of health products of global importance that might not otherwise
succeed in the commercial marketplace. Examples of such partnerships include
the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and the Malaria Vaccine Development
Program (MVDP) as well as contraceptive development.
For a printable version of this section, that includes the charts and graphs from the Congressional Budget Justification FY 2004, please click here. (Note: This file is in pdf format.)
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