ONE Applauds Administration’s Global Health Initiative & Goals

Washington D.C.-ONE today issued a policy analysis of President Obama’s historic Global Health Initiative, the Administration’s plan to coordinate and expand U.S. efforts to improve global health over six years coupled with a pledge of $63 billion for the initiative.

ONE welcomes the Administration’s commitment to this new, broader, more coordinated approach to global health. The GHI outlines needed strategies to maximize returns on U.S. development investments, including placing women and girls at the center of health plans and ensuring all efforts are results-driven and accountable. It expands investments in cost-effective areas like vaccines and neglected tropical diseases and tackles tough global health challenges like reducing the number of mothers who die during childbirth.

“The United States has driven many of the great advancements in global health during the last decade,” said ONE President and CEO David Lane. “These recent achievements show that the lofty goals President Obama outlined for the Administration’s Global Health Initiative are attainable.”

“Anyone who has spent time with a Minister of Health in Africa knows the immense systematic challenges that remain in trying to fight disease and provide adequate healthcare,” Lane said. “The efforts outlined in the GHI to expand the scope of our lifesaving efforts, to better coordinate our U.S. agencies and other donors, and to address the infrastructure and human resource challenges are critical steps moving forward.”

ONE hopes the GHI will help address some of the biggest systematic challenges that prevent improved health outcomes, including strengthening ministries of health, improving supply chains, and training health care workers.

Through the framework of the GHI and with support from Congress, the US has an enormous opportunity to save lives, fight disease and improve health outcomes worldwide. But, to reach the goals, a significant scale-up of funding for global health will be required during the next three years.

A key principle of the GHI is engaging with multilateral institutions including the two largest partners on these goals, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Global Alliance for Vaccinations and Immunizations (GAVI). They are both facing demands from developing countries that far outpace the supply of resources from donors. ONE will work with Congress to adequately fund these two priorities, as well as support the resources needed to achieve the ambitious goals set forth by the Administration.