Margaret E. Clark
Vice President and Executive Director
Global Health & Development, The Aspen Institute

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The disease that affects a person in the remotest village in Africa is also, at once, on someone's doorstep thousands of miles away, in Toronto or Madrid, Los Angeles or Bangkok. Recent H1N1 and avian flu epidemics point to our global connectedness, and to the fact that a weak health system anywhere is a weak health system everywhere. Like it or not, we are in this together. Wherever we live, our morality, as well as our pragmatism, tells us that we must do all that is in our power to address global health inequities in a sustainable way.

Yet, what does it mean to invest in sustainable global health? Sustainable investments in healthcare worldwide cannot be built up from small scale innovation in one region or one community — whether it’s a new type of water pump, a new type of health store, or an effective, anti-malarial bednet made locally. Sustainable investments in global health require intensive partnership between the public and public sectors, so that developing nations can own and scale up interventions to achieve lasting change. Major victories in global health depend on the strong involvement of developing countries’ political leadership. For health investments to be sustainable they must recognize and respond to the local economic, political, cultural and social complexities that influence successful product or service delivery. It is not possible to create systemic, large-scale change — the type of change that is needed in the poorest countries — without engaging the public sector.

Indeed, in Mexico, former Minister of Health Julio Frenk championed a comprehensive national health reform, Seguro Popular, that has ensured that every citizen has access to a basic package of primary healthcare. In Ethiopia, Minister of Health Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has launched a national program of Health Extension Workers who provide primary care to every person in every district in this country of more than 82 million. The Aspen Institute's Ministerial Leadership Initiative, a program of Global Health and Development at the Aspen Institute, works intensively with senior political leaders in health ministries in five countries in Africa and Asia to give these leaders the tools they need to strengthen healthcare systems in their countries.

GE's healthymagination strategy should include working actively with the public sector, as fragile as it may be in many of the poorest nations. It is by reaching out to create enduring public-private partnerships that GE will be able to roll out innovations at a scale that is large enough to truly improve health for those who need it most.