African Finance Ministers gathered at Harvard in mid-April for the annual Ministerial Forum following the World Bank/IMF Spring meetings. The mood in Washington, D.C. was reportedly gloomy as emergent economies came up against the harsh realities of current dynamics impacting the global economy and by extension the economic well-being of almost every nation. Emergent economies … Read more
The 2023 Tessa Jowell Fellowship for Doctoral Research was awarded to Esias Bedingar, a Ph.D. candidate in Population Health Sciences at the Harvard Chan School whose research will evaluate the impact of scaling up a community-based delivery model of primary healthcare on maternal and child mortality in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The … Read more
For the first time since the pandemic, more than 30 Ministers who previously participated in the Harvard Ministerial Program and are still in office were reconvened for a three-day Roundtable in Addis Ababa last November. The principal goal of the Roundtable is to provide an opportunity to refresh and build on the key under-girding tenets … Read more
The Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program established the Tessa Jowell Student Research Fellowship providing up to $15,000 in support of doctoral or post-doctoral level research. Research must focus on health, education, or other aspects of human development impacting prospects for sustainable economic growth in countries participating in the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. The Fellowship entails funding … Read more
Ministers invited to participate in the June Ministerial Forum are required to identify a ‘legacy goal’ before coming to Harvard. The idea of a legacy goal is the focal point of the Ministerial Forum curriculum designed to have Ministers sieve through the many priorities they are confronted with to determine which is likely to make … Read more
In June the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program marked the tenth anniversary of its series of Harvard Ministerial Forums. Over the past ten years the Program has organized and hosted 19 Ministerial Forums bringing to Harvard a total of 228 serving government Ministers from 65 countries. Initially conceived as a special opportunity for health Ministers, the … Read more
Efforts to reboot health care in Africa are not new most notably dating back to the landmark 1978 Alma Ata Declaration charting the road to ‘health for all’. Although most African countries in the subsequent decades adopted the principles of primary health care (PHC) articulated in the Alma Ata Declaration, in too many cases PHC … Read more
In the aftermath of Côte d’Ivoire’s civil war, the country’s health system was devastated. Infrastructure and supply chains were in ruins, many health facilities were no longer functioning, impacting health service provision at every level. After the war was ended and democratic government restored, in 2012 newly appointed Health Minister, Dr. Raymond Goudou Coffie, was … Read more
After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program, in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, again convened Finance Ministers from across Africa in-person for the 2022 Harvard Ministerial Leadership Forum. While available data suggests the COVID pandemic has had less devastating public health consequences across Africa than first anticipated, the … Read more
His Excellency Julius Maada Bio was elected President of Sierra Leone in 2018, winning 51.8% of he vote. He ran on a five-pillar platform focused on transforming the country’s economy, human development, improving governance, improving infrastructure, and overhauling financing of the public sector. Prior to being elected President, H.E. was a Senior Research Fellow at … Read more
