2025
See the newly launched tech database
Agriculture, Health, and Education
Access in the RESOURCES tab
2025
See the newly launched Tech Database
Agriculture, Health, and Education
Access in the RESOURCES tab

Spurring Economic Growth through Human Development Investment

Spurring Economic Growth through Human Development Investment

Current and former finance and economic planning ministers from 20 countries participated in the seventh annual Harvard Ministerial Forum at Harvard last week. A key focus of the Forum was groundbreaking new research from David Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, correlating economic returns from human development investments. [link to David’s paper] Bloom found that highest returns result from reductions in fertility; increased life span resulting from better health care and more healthy living; and increased educational attainment.

Participating ministers were challenged to consider whether their current budget spending is building a foundation for sustainable economic growth. For example, health and education account for the largest part of most countries’ budgets, but in many developing countries health and education outcomes are poor. One result is substantial and growing numbers of unemployed young people. Another is population increase continuing to outpace GDP growth. Ministers mapped a human development pathway for each of their countries focusing on the key human development building blocks with highest long-term economic benefits such as early childhood nutrition and educational development, better quality primary school education, access to comprehensive reproductive health services, and strengthening primary health care.

Read more

What makes an effective minister?

The role of ministers of education and health is pivotal to developing the human capital essential for sustainable economic development. These sectors together usually account for the lion’s share of the national budget, they are often the largest employers, and they provide critical frontline public services. Yet the global commitment to universal education and health … Read more

Harvard Ministerial Program Supports Student Research

Harvard Ministerial Program Supports Student Research

On January 2nd, 2019, 39 graduate students from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Graduate School of Education will board planes and fly off to conduct unique research projects with ministries of health and education across Africa.

As part of its post-Harvard support, the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program offers Program alumni the opportunity to present research proposals that can support the achievement of their legacy goals. The Program matches each proposal to a set of talented Harvard graduate students, and together with support from Professors Rifat Atun and Fernando Reimers, the students are well equipped to conduct rigorous research that can drive policy decisions. 

Read more

Harvard Ministers Work on Innovative Ideas for Youth Development

Harvard Ministers Work on Innovative Ideas for Youth Development

Over three days in late November about 25 currently serving government Ministers from across Africa gathered in Johannesburg, together with a similar number of selected young African achievers, to jointly develop new approaches to current high-levels of youth unemployment across Africa and to explore possibilities for optimizing the prospects of a demographic dividend.

Ministers, including finance, economic planning, education, health and youth had all participated in Ministerial Forums at Harvard over the past three years and continue to benefit from the post-Harvard support that is a key part of the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program.

The Harvard Ministerial Roundtable for Policy Innovation in Human Capital Development in Johannesburg extended the on-going peer-networking among ministers participating in the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program to include for the first time a cross-section of young African achievers from diverse backgrounds in discussions about optimizing Africa’s human capital.

Read more

Be ‘Remarkable’ Kenyan First Lady Exhorts Harvard Forum Participants

Be ‘Remarkable’ Kenyan First Lady Exhorts Harvard Forum Participants

Speaking to participants in the seventh annual Harvard Ministerial Leadership Forum in early June, Margaret Kenyatta, First Lady of Kenya, outlined the impressive results of her groundbreaking Beyond Zero campaign: In Kenya, over the past five years, infant mortality has fallen from 52 per 1,000 to 39 per 1,000 live births; under five mortality came down from 74 per 1,000 to 52 per 1,000. Maternal mortality dropped from 488 per 100,000 to 362 per 1,000.

Read more

Prioritizing Budgets for Social Impact

Prioritizing Budgets for Social Impact

Finance and economic development ministers from nations in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia recently gathered at Harvard for the annual Harvard Ministerial Leadership Forum, an intensive four-day program focused on ways that they can use their positions to accomplish policy and investment goals in human development. This year’s program featured a talk moderated by … Read more

Celebrated Reproductive Health Expert Joins Advisory Board

Celebrated Reproductive Health Expert Joins Advisory Board

Dr. Senait Fisseha, MD, JD, Director of International Programs for the Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation and Clinical Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School, has been appointed to the Advisory Board of the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. As the founding executive director of the University of Michigan’s Center for International Reproductive Health Training, Dr. Fisseha has spent her career leading groundbreaking research and training programs to improve reproductive health care in Ethiopia.

Read more