Could a new coalition around saving lives be the way forward?

This has been a turbulent year in the global development sector, but Gargee Ghosh, the Gates Foundation’s president of global policy and advocacy, still sees a way forward. “It feels like we have had so many setbacks on the financing front and on the debt front in Africa, and yet, we all, I, certainly feel the job is still to make progress, even if it isn't going to be through exactly the same structures that we've been working in over the past 25 years,” she said at the Devex Impact House event during the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week. While there may be skepticism about aid budgets, people in France, the United States, India, or Senegal care about saving and improving lives, she said, adding that maybe a new “coalition around saving lives” is the path forward. “We've done a terrible job building on that empathy, in keeping support up for the business we're in of development, and so we've lost kind of public opinion, but that empathy is there, and how we make that core to moving forward in our work, is something that I am really thinking a lot about,” Ghosh said. That was key for the Gates Foundation last week — finding ways to push the work they care most about and keep making progress. “Let's not be wedded to the names of institutions, the structures we've known,” she said. ”If there are new ways to have impact, if they need to be messaged differently — but are actually helping the people we are here to serve and support — to me, it's that piece that I'm listening for.” There is a large pipeline of global health innovations, so the foundation is focused on finding the funding and cooperation necessary to get vaccines or handheld ultrasounds to those who need them. That could mean partnering with the Trump administration to help “bring to life” its new global health strategy. Ghosh said it is “carefully thought through” and something to “build on,” but wanted to know more details on implementation and if maternal health could be included.