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New Initiatives for Global Health
Foundation Hosts Pocantico Forum to Address New Initiatives and Opportunities in Global Health
September 25, 2007
For nearly a century, the Rockefeller Foundation has been a trailblazer in philanthropic innovation to address the needs of the poor. Over the past decade, the field of global health has undergone a dramatic transformation with unprecedented funding and new institutional models. Many problems have attracted great talent and substantial resources in efforts to better serve poor and vulnerable populations, but new challenges and opportunities are emerging, most evident in growing health inequalities and weak health systems around the world. As it has in the past, the Foundation continues to learn from its previous efforts and explore new paths to best achieve its mission.
On Thursday and Friday, September 20 and 21, the Rockefeller Foundation hosted a conference of global health experts, held at the Pocantico Conference Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Foundation President Judith Rodin stressed that the “...the script of globalization is not fully written. [W]e at the Foundation are working to harness its forces to enhance opportunities, expand the benefits of globalization for more people around the world, and ensure that the negative consequences of globalization are more clearly understood and managed.” In this vein, she encouraged the participants to think deeply about:
- Approaches to better prepare for pandemic threats in regional epicenters;
- Competencies required by public health professionals in the twenty-first century and how to build them;
- How to leverage the advantages of technology and innovations in medicine for the poor and vulnerable;
- e-health, a possible new frontier for technology in the global south; and,
- New or more robust roles for the private sector to play in financing and furnishing health services for the people who need them most.
In formal and informal groups, the conference participants focused on these approaches and the issues they raise. The group was joined by Deputy Secretary General of the UN, Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania (right with the RF's Ariel Pablo-Mendez) over dinner and a question-and-answer session afterwards, where she noted the importance of health to the UN's current agenda and sought suggestions from the assembled experts on ways and means for making the UN more effective in its global health efforts.
Pocantico II participants
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