Global Health Policy Center Monthly Newsletter: February/March 2018

March 5, 2018

Dear colleagues,

Welcome to the February/March 2018 newsletter from the Global Health Policy Center (GHPC) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)! We invite you to catch up on our latest content.

Publications:

Podcast:

• Before The Revolution – A Book Review of The AIDS Pandemic: The February 2018 issue of Health Affairs features a brief article I wrote in review of Michael Merson and Stephen Inrig’s recent book The AIDS Pandemic. Merson and Inrig’s work offers an insightful look at the early stages of coordinating the global AIDS response from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s and beyond—before the revolutionary emergence of accessible antiretroviral therapy, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The book closes with a look to the future, and an appeal for hope and caution. As a reminder, we hosted Merson and Inrig for a discussion of their book in October 2017 at an event titled History and Future of the Global HIV Response. Video of the discussion can be found here.


• Experts React: State of the Union 2018: Following President Trump’s State of the Union address on January 30, the CSIS Senior Vice Presidents each offered their reactions to the President’s speech. Our commentaries span across the breadth of expertise housed at CSIS—touching on everything from North Korea to the opioid crisis—and included remarks from Jon Alterman, Heather Conley, Kathleen Hicks, Michael Green, James Lewis, Frank Verrastro, and myself. In addition to responding in writing, Colm Quinn hosted a discussion in a special episode of the CSIS Podcast. The commentaries and podcast audio can be found here
   
• The 142nd WHO Executive Board Meeting and Planning for Polio Transition: At the end of January, health leaders from around the world convened for the 142nd executive board meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO)—the first to occur under new Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In this episode of Take as Directed, hosted by Senior Fellow Nellie Bristol, Dr. Tedros’s proposed program of work and key priorities, the U.S. priorities for the WHO this year, and the current state of polio transition and the WHO transition plan presented at the meeting are discussed. Nellie is joined by guests former Ambassador John E. Lange, Senior Fellow for Global Health Diplomacy at the United Nations Foundation, and Jenifer Healy, Chief of Staff, Office of Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.


• USAID Priorities and Future Outlook in Global Health: Dr. Alma Crumm Golden is Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Global Health at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In this episode of Take As Directed, Dr. Golden discusses how her career as a pediatrician first brought her attention to the need for integrated health services in promoting maternal and child health and how she has brought this perspective into her work in domestic health policy at the Department of Health and Human Services and now in her global work at USAID. Sara M. Allinder, GHPC Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, asks Dr. Golden about her priorities at USAID, the role of the private sector, and how the agency might need to shift its approach to adapt to potential cuts to global health funding outlined in President Trump’s FY 2019 budget request.


• The podcast series is available here and on iTunes. Please subscribe using the podcast app. 

The New Barbarianism

• The New Barbarianism awarded honors, premieres on PBS in March: The New Barbarianism is a CSIS GHPC original documentary that explores the surge of violence we have witnessed in recent years against the health sector across multiple wars, both new and old, and the accompanying shredding of international humanitarian norms.
  
  On January 31, the Impact Docs Awards announced that The New Barbarianism had received two “Awards of Excellence” for “Feature Documentary” and “Script/Writer.” The documentary is also an “Official Selection” in the upcoming “Los Angeles Film Awards,” “The Oniros Film Awards,” and the “Docs Without Boarders Film Festival” competitions. 
  
  The New Barbarianism will make its PBS debut on March 24, airing on WSBE-TV (Rhode Island PBS). You can read more on this in our official press release.
  
  We have continued to put on screenings over the last month. The film was screened at the Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights Policy on February 5 and in Berlin on February 19 at the German Foreign Affairs Office. Both screenings were followed by discussions led by expert panels.
  
  Many additional screenings are scheduled for the coming months. If you’re interested in hosting a viewing, please contact Aishwarya Raje (araje@csis.org).

Travel:

• Munich: This month, Aishwarya Raje, GHPC Program Coordinator and Research Assistant, and I attended the Munich Security Conference. Widely considered to be the premier global forum on international security policy, the conference drew over 80 defense ministers and 30 heads of state from around the world. As part of the conference program, and with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the CSIS GHPC hosted a health security roundtable titled “Health Under Siege”. The concept of the roundtable, which was to examine the rise of violence against health facilities in conflict zones, was born from the issues addressed in The New Barbarianism. We had a distinguished group of roundtable attendees, which included Joanne Liu, International President of Médecins Sans Frontières; Peter Maurer, President of ICRC; Peter Salama, Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme; Annika Söder, Swedish Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs; and Mark Suzman, Chief Strategy Officer and President of Global Policy and Advocacy, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I moderated the discussion, which was focused on how the international humanitarian law can be used to play a role in preventing these attacks, as well as constructing a multilateral approach to include nongovernmental organizations, military, and governments to engage in this critical issue.

Upcoming Events:

• March 12: I will participate as a panelist in an upcoming policy briefing on the future of U.S. global health security efforts, hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The event, The U.S. and Global Health Security at a Time of Transition, will take place on March 12 from 2:00pm – 3:30pm ET at the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Barbara Jordan Conference Center. The event will feature opening remarks from Jen Kates, Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President and Director of Global Health and HIV Policy, and a keynote address from Anne Schuchat, Acting Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). You can find more details and register for the event here.


• April 18: The CSIS Global Health Policy Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation will co-host a policy briefing to discuss the state of global health financing—with a particular focus on global HIV/AIDS spending. The event will be centered around the launch of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)’s forthcoming Financing Global Health 2017 report and the launch of a new interactive IHME website tracking global health spending. We hosted related events with these partners in 2015, 2016, and 2017, which are all available on-demand on our website. Keep an eye out for a formal invitation to be released in the coming weeks.


• June 21: The CSIS Global Health Policy Center will host a public event from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm ET on June 21 to highlight lessons learned from the Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL) initiative. Stay tuned for more information on this and other upcoming events.

New Hire:

We are pleased to welcome..

• Emily Foecke Munden, who joins us as an Associate Fellow and will support our health security research agenda. Prior to joining CSIS, Emily was a consultant with the Center for Global Development, the executive director of a maternal health nonprofit in Sierra Leone, and a senior business analyst with Target Corporation. She holds an M.A. in international affairs from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.