Blog examines potential for success of office of global health diplomacy

Mar 20 2013

Writing in the Center for Strategic & International Studies' (CSIS) "Smart Global Health" blog, J. Stephen Morrison, CSIS senior vice president and director of the center's Global Health Policy Center, discusses the history of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) and the recent creation of the State Department's Office of Global Health Diplomacy (OGHD). "Buffeted from multiple directions, GHI quietly expired in mid-2012. In the second Obama term, the OGHD has the opportunity to try again, to advance GHI's lofty and critical goals," he states. "Many question what changes are needed to make a successful outcome likely, especially if U.S. funding for global health and development declines and interagency turf battles persist," Morrison writes, adding, "There are three answers to that question." Expanding on each point, he says Ambassador Eric Goosby, who heads OGHD and serves as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, must have "reliable, robust assets"; "needs a compelling, intelligible game plan"; and "needs to use the OGHD bully pulpit to sharpen the vision for the future of U.S. global health policy" (3/18).