Report of the CSIS Commission on Smart Global Health Policy

A Healthier, Safer, and More Prosperous World

As the United States applies smart power to advance U.S. interests around the world, it is time to leverage the essential role that U.S. global health policy can play. Americans have long understood that promoting global health advances our basic humanitarian values in saving and enhancing lives. In recent years, support for global health has also proven its broader value in bolstering U.S. national security and building constructive new partnerships.

A smart, strategic, long-term global health policy will advance America’s core interests, building on remarkable recent successes, making better use of the influence and special capabilities of the United States, motivating others to do more, and creating lasting collaborations that could save and lift the lives of millions worldwide. It will usher in a new era in which partner countries take ownership of goals and programs; in which evaluation, cost effectiveness, and accountability assume vital roles; and in which a focus on the health of girls and women becomes a strategic means to bring lasting changes. And it will enhance America’s influence, credibility, and reservoir of global goodwill.

In this report, the CSIS Commission on Smart Global Health Policy—a diverse group of opinion leaders drawn from business, finance, media, philanthropy, foreign affairs, security, government, public health, and the U.S. Congress—calls on Washington policymakers to embrace a fivepoint agenda for global health—a mutually reinforcing set of goals to achieve U.S. ambitions and partner country needs: 

  1. Maintain the commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis;
  2. Prioritize women and children in U.S. global health efforts;
  3. Strengthen prevention and capabilities to manage emergencies;
  4. Ensure the United States has the capacity to match our global health ambitions;
  5. Make smart investments in multilateral institutions.

William J. Fallon

Helene D. Gayle