Global Health 2035's 'Grand Convergence' Presented at the World Economic Forum

On January 24, 2014 Dr. Lawrence Summers, Chair of the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (CIH), joined fellow CIH commissioner Linah Mohohlo and philanthropist Bill Gates on a panel at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the potential for a grand convergence initiative. The session was moderated by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.  CIH commissioners Gavin Yamey, Mthuli Ncube, Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, and Seth Berkley were present at the panel on the grand convergence.  View a short video on the grand convergence, which premiered during this WEF panel, on the DCP3 homepage.

The goals of the initiative, as summarized in a recent piece in the New York Times by Michael de la Merced, include:

  • Reducing deaths of children under age 5 to 16-per-1,000 live births
  • Reducing annual deaths from AIDS to 8-per-1o0,000 people
  • Reducing tuberculosis deaths to 4-per-100,000
  • Curb death and illness caused by noncommunicable diseases

 

The grand convergence initiative was developed out of the commission’s report, Global Health 2035: A World Converging within a Generation, which presents the idea that the world can achieve a "grand convergence," bringing preventable infectious disease, maternal and child death down to universally low levels, by 2035.  The report was released in a special December, 2013 edition of The Lancet.

 

      

(Left to right) World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, CIH Commissioners Linah Mohohlo, Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, Seth Berkley, and Gavin Yamey, philanthropist Bill Gates, CIH Chair Lawrence Summers, and CIH Commissioner Mthuli Ncube.