How is the U.S. Global Health Initiative Changing What Happens in the Field?; Lois Quam, GHI Executive Director

I had the very good fortune to be able to share more information about GHI to a standing room only crowd full of people interested in global health. It was an exciting opportunity to share the wonderful effect that GHI is having throughout the world.

At times, the wonderful guiding principles of GHI leave our partners with a great sense of the ideals of GHI but not an equally great sense of how GHI will look on the ground where they work, in the country where they are from, or with the diseases they work so hard against. That is why we had some of our in-country implementers share their in country experiences.

Mamadi Yilla, GHI planning lead for Malawi shared her insights on a new nursing education partnership initiative that worked with all of our agencies, other country governments, multilaterals and the Government of Malawi to introduce a new nursing curriculum. By pooling our efforts, we were able to equip each new nursing student with a wider range of health care skills than ever before.

Bethanne Moskov, Health Team Leader in Mali, USAID, brought home the new thinking that GHI represents. Though it is a somewhat smaller program than many of our others, Mali is rolling out new training with our in-country Peace Corps volunteers, expanding the access of our health care through the Department of Defense, and grounding new NTD capabilities in the Malian Ministry of Health.

Kayla Laserson, Director, KEMRI Research Station in Kenya, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, outlined the new ways that we will be able to measure the impact of all these new synergies through the GHI Learning Agenda. Kenya, like other GHI countries, is working with partners like never before. The team there will be measuring the impact of this collaboration, so that we can show you how GHI is working with new and innovative metrics.

Through their great words, each of our country implementers was able to share the critical theme of country ownership for GHI. To have a truly long lasting effect, GHI must continue to work hand-in-hand with our partner governments throughout the world. By making our priorities their priorities, and vice versa, we are helping to ensure that our programs add the capacity and zeal of our contemporaries at Ministries of Health.

Through our partners at The Kaiser Family Foundation, the entire event is available on the web. I encourage you to watch the event, especially so that you can get more detail on all of the wonderful activities that continue to happen throughout GHI.