The Commission on Investing in Health
In 1993, the World Bank published the World Development Report (WDR 1993), Investing in Health, under the leadership of chief economist Lawrence Summers. One of the most widely cited publications in the Bank’s history, the report demonstrated that well-chosen, evidence-based health expenditures were an investment not only in health, but also in economic prosperity. It also argued for additional resources to address high-burden diseases.
Prompted by the twentieth anniversary of WDR 1993, the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health was launched in December 2012. Chaired by Lawrence Summers, and co-chaired by Dean Jamison (lead author of WDR 1993), the Commission was an independent group of 25 leading economists and global health experts from around the world, listed below. It published its first report in December, 2013.
Commissioners
Lawrence H. Summers
Charles W. Eliot University Professor Harvard University (Chair)
Summers is President Emeritus of Harvard University, He previously served as Vice President of the World Bank, Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, Director of the National Economic Council, and Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Summers was the first social scientist ever to receive the annual Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation (NSF). He also was awarded the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal. Summers holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.
Dean T. Jamison
Professor of Global Health University of Washington (Co-Chair)
Jamison previously held academic appointments at UCSF, Harvard and UCLA and was an economist on the staff of the World Bank where he was lead author of WDR93. He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University and was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
George Alleyne
Director Emeritus Pan American Health Organization
Knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his services to medicine, Alleyne served as Director of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (PASB), Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO). He was awarded the Order of the Caribbean Community, the highest honor that can be conferred on a Caribbean national. Alleyne is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Kenneth Arrow
Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus Stanford University
Winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in economics together with Sir John Hicks, Arrow is well known for his pioneering contributions to general equilibrium theory and welfare theory. Previous academic appointments include positions on the economics faculties of the Universities of Chicago and Harvard. Arrow also received the John Bates Clark Medal. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.
Seth Berkley
Chief Executive Officer GAVI Alliance
Berkely previously served as president, CEO and founder of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Prior to founding IAVI in 1996, Berkely was Associate Director of the Health Sciences Division at the Rockefeller Foundation. Berkely has also worked with the CDC, with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and for the Carter Center (based in Uganda). He holds a medical degree from Brown University.
H.E. Dr. Agnes Binagwaho
Minister of Health, Rwanda
Dr. Binagwaho is also currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She previously served as Permanent Secretary of the Rwandan Ministry of Health and as Executive Secretary of Rwanda’s National AIDS Control Commission. A medical doctor by training, Dr. Binagwaho serves as a member of several boards, foundations and journals combating AIDS and infant mortality.
Flavia Bustreo
Assistant Director General Family, Women's and Children's Health World Health Organization
Bustreo previously served as Director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health. Prior to that she held assignments with the World Bank, with NORAD and with country and regional offices of the WHO, including Sudan, Senegal, Bangladesh, WHO’s regional office in Copenhagen and at WHO HQ in Geneva. Bustreo played a key role in the recent High Level Taskforce on International Innovative Financing for Health Systems and in the UN Taskforce on Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. She holds a medical degree from Padua University and a M.Sc. in Communicable Disease Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
David Evans
Director, Department of Health Systems Financing World Health Organization
Evans, who holds a PhD in economics from the Australian National University, previously served as Director of WHO’s Global Program on Evidence for Health Policy. An expert in the economics of household decision-making in developing countries, including decisions relating to health, Evans joined WHO in 1990 to help develop research into social and economic factors relating to tropical diseases.
Richard Feachem
Director, Global Health Group, Global Health Sciences, and Professor of Global Health University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley
Currently also a Visiting Professor at London University and an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland, Feachem previously served as founding Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Under Secretary General of the United Nations. Additional posts include: Director for Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank and Dean of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Feachem was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for services to health and development.
Julio Frenk
Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health and T&G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development, a joint appointment with the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government
Frenk previously served as Minister of Health of Mexico. He also was the founding director-general of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico. Additional previous positions held by Frenk include: director of the Center for Health and the Economy at the Mexican Health Foundation, executive director in charge of Evidence and Information for Policy at the WHO, Senior Fellow in the global health program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Executive President of the Carso Health Institute in Mexico City. A member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Frenk holds a medical degree from the National University of Mexico and a joint PhD in medical care organization and in sociology from the University of Michigan.
Gargee Ghosh
Director, Development Policy and Finance Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Ghosh previously held positions at Google, at McKinsey & Company (where she served as a Senior Expert in the Social Sector Office) and at the Center for Global Development. Involved in the early days of the BMGF’s work in policy and innovative finance, Ghosh holds Master’s degrees in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford and in International Relations from Georgetown.
Sue Goldie
Roger Irving Lee Professor of Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health Director, Harvard Global Health Institute, Harvard University
A MacArthur award recipient, Goldie has focused her career on improving the health of vulnerable populations, in particular women, across the globe. Renowned for rigorous scholarship in decision science, and a long-standing champion of interdisciplinary research and education, Dr. Goldie serves as the Director of both the Harvard Global Health Institute at Harvard University and the Center for Health Decision Science at the Harvard School of Public Health. She has served on the Board of Global Health at the Institute of Medicine, and as a scientific or technical advisor to the World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, Institute of Medicine, and National Academy of Sciences.
Yan Guo
Professor of Public Health and Vice President Peking University Health Science Center
Yan also is Vice Director of the China Academy of Health Policy and Board Member of the Community Health Branch of the Chinese Hospital Management Association. She has served as a consultant for a range of internationally sponsored projects carried out in China such as DFID’s China Urban Health and Poverty Project, the World Bank-sponsored Final Assessment of TB Control project and the UNICEF-funded Comprehensive Primary Health Care Project.
Sanjeev Gupta
Deputy Director Fiscal Affairs Department International Monetary Fund
Previous positions held by Gupta include: Senior Advisor in the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department, Assistant Director in the African Department, Assistant Director and Chief in the Expenditure Policy Division of the Fiscal Affairs Department and Economist in the European Department. Gupta has led IMF missions in some 25 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He was previously a Secretary of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi, Senior Faculty at the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, and Fellow, Kiel Institute of World Economics, Germany.
Richard Horton
Editor-in-Chief The Lancet
Horton was the first President of the World Association of Medical Editors and is a Past-President of the US Council of Science Editors. He is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University College London, and the University of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Founder Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences. He currently chairs the Royal College of Physicians’ Working Party on Physicians and the Pharmaceutical Industry; co-chairs a WHO Scientific Advisory Group on Clinical Trials Registration; is a Council Member of the Global Forum for Health Research; is a Board Member of the Health Metrics Network; sits on the External Reference Group for WHO’s Research Strategy; and is an External Advisory Board Member for the WHO European Region. Horton is also a Senior Associate of The Nuffield Trust, a think tank for research and policy studies in health services.
Dr. Margaret Kruk
Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University
Dr. Margaret Kruk research emphasizes health system effectiveness and population preferences for healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Kruk is particularly interested in the application of new methods, such as discrete choice experiments and systems dynamic modeling, in studying the interactions between health systems and populations in low-income countries. She works with governments and academic colleagues in several African countries, including Tanzania, Ethiopia, Liberia, and Ghana. She has published on women’s preferences for maternal health care, policy options for human resource shortages, health care financing, and evaluation of large-scale health programs in low-income countries. Prior to joining Columbia, Dr. Kruk was an assistant professor in Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and policy advisor for Health at the Millennium Project, an advisory body to the UN Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.
Adel Mahmoud
Professor in Molecular Biology and Public Policy at Princeton University
Recently retired as President of Merck Vaccines and member of Management Committee of Merck & Company Inc, Mahmoud has also held academic posts at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland spanning 25 years concluding as Chairman of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief. Mahmoud holds an MD degree from the University of Cairo and a PhD from the University of London, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a member of numerous prestigious associations and societies including the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science. He has received both the Bailey K. Ashford Award of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the Squibb Award of the Infectious Disease Society of America. Dr. Mahmoud currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea and as a member of the Board of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative as well as several public and not for profit corporations.
Linah K. Mohohlo
Governor Bank of Botswana
Linah was appointed Governor of the Bank of Botswana in 1999 following a 23-year career in the Bank. She has also worked for the IMF and, in her capacity as Governor of the IMF for Botswana, she has been a member of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, representing the Africa Group 1 Constituency. Among her international engagements, Mohohlo served as a member of Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa, and currently enjoys membership of the Africa Progress Panel, Investment Committee of the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, Investment Climate Facility for Africa and Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. Mrs. Mohohlo is a recipient of several Central Bank Governor of the Year Awards. She has been honored with the Presidential Order of Honour in recognition of efficient and devoted service to Botswana, and The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum recognized her with the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. She read Accounting and Business, Economics, Finance and Investments at the University of Botswana, The George Washington University and University of Exeter, and has undertaken the Executive Management study program at Yale University.
Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mendez
USAID
Dr. Pablos-Méndez is the Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID, a position he assumed in August 2011. Prior to his current position, Dr. Pablos-Méndez served as Professor of Clinical Medicine and Epidemiology at Columbia University, and as Managing Director at the Rockefeller Foundation where he led its global strategy on the transformation of health systems towards Universal Health Coverage and Public-Private Partnerships for technologies against diseases of poverty. He was previously Director of Knowledge Management at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. Dr. Pablos-Méndez received his M.D. from the University of Guadalajara’s School of Medicine and his M.P.H. from Columbia University.
Mthuli Ncube
Chief Economist and Vice-President African Development Bank
Ncube holds a PhD in Mathematical Finance from Cambridge University. Before joining the AfDB, he held the post of Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, South Africa, and before that was Dean and Professor of Finance at Wits Business School. He has extensive experience as an investment banker and as a regulator; he served as a Board member of the South African Financial Services Board (FSB). Ncube is also Chairman of the Board of the African Economic Research Consortium, Chairman of the Global Agenda Council on “Poverty and Economic Development” (World Economic Forum) and a Governor of the African Capacity Building Foundation.
Dr. K Srinath Reddy
President, Public Health Foundation of India
A medical doctor with specializations in cardiology and epidemiology, Dr. Reddy headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) until recently. He has served on many WHO expert panels and is on the Board of the World Heart Federation. He edited the National Medical Journal of India for 10 years and is on the editorial board of several international and national journals. Dr. Reddy was awarded the WHO Director General’s Award for Global Leadership in Tobacco Control at the 56th World Health Assembly in May 2003. He was conferred the prestigious national award PADMA BHUSHAN by the President of India on the occasion of the 57th Republic Day of India, in 2005. The Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, UK, awarded him the Queen Elizabeth Medal in 2005. Dr. Reddy was elected Foreign Associate Member of the Institute of Medicine (US National Academies) in 2004. He has been recipient of research grants from the Indian Council of Medical Research, NIH (Fogarty), Wellcome Trust, WHO, British Heart Foundation and the Global Forum for Health Research.
Helen Saxenian
Independent Consultant and Senior Consultant, Results for Development Institute
Saxenian works as a independent consultant to various international organizations. She is a senior consultant to the Results for Development Institute. She led the Institute’s support to GAVI on the revision of several of its policies, including its eligibility policy, co-financing policy, and introduction grants and support to campaigns. Saxenian holds a PhD in applied economics from Stanford and a B.A. in economics from U.C. Berkeley.
Agnes Soucat
Director for Human Development African Development Bank
At the AfDB, Soucat is responsible for health, education, and social protection in 54 sub-Saharan Africa and Maghreb countries. Previously she worked at the World Bank where she co-authored the World Development Report 2004 and pioneered Results Based Financing in Africa. Before joining the World Bank she worked for UNAIDS, UNICEF and the European Commission. Trained as an MD she holds a Masters in Nutrition from the University of Nancy (France) and a Masters of Public Health as well as a Ph.D in Health Economics from Johns Hopkins University (USA).
Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe
Professor of International Economics, University of Oslo and Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
Ulltveit-Moe holds a PhD in economics from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH). Previously she worked as Research Director of the Centre for International Economics and Shipping at NHH in Bergen. Ullveit-Moe has worked as a consultant for the European Commission and the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry. She has also served as member of government-appointed public commissions and as member of the Board of directors of Norwegian multinational corporations.
Dr. Gavin Yamey
Global Health Group, University of California, San Francisco
Gavin Yamey, MD, MA, MRCP, is Lead of E2Pi, the Evidence-to-Policy Initiative, based within the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Yamey previously was Deputy Editor of the Western Journal of Medicine, Assistant Editor of the BMJ, and founding Senior Editor of PLoS Medicine. Awarded a Kaiser Mini-Media Fellowship in Global Health Reporting, Yamey developed a series on Sudan, Uganda and Kenya that was discussed in the UK Parliament. He has been external advisor to the World Health Organization and to TDR, the Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. Dr. Yamey holds a medical degree from Oxford University and University College London
