Devex Checkup: Can AI make the world healthier?

Artificial intelligence has already firmly laid its roots in the work of health practitioners globally — in fields ranging from medical imaging to robotic surgeries and automated electronic medical records. But there is a plethora of untapped potential, experts tell Devex contributor Rebecca Root. For example, much of the data in the health space is siloed and not well organized or integrated. This prevents practitioners from gaining insights into broader health trends. But AI tools can help with this much-needed organization that could give the medical community greater insight into diseases and how they are evolving. But in the coming years, experts expect the ways in which AI tools are used in the health space to become more sophisticated. This could manifest itself to include AI tools working to improve areas such as the detection of disease patterns, efficiency of health centers, and decrease patient waiting times. There are organizations already doing this. India-based organization Khushi Baby is using the data collected by community health workers on new mothers to identify specific behaviors that are leading to negative outcomes. And Viebeg Technologies uses AI to ensure medical supply chains in Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are well-stocked. “AI has the potential to transform a lot of the aspects of humanitarian and development work as we know it,” said Bernhard Kowatsch, head of the innovation accelerator at the World Food Programme. And at an organizational level, experts say AI can save time by doing tasks that might otherwise be manual, such as synthesizing evaluation reports, writing grant applications, and streamlining hiring. “For cash-strapped NGOs, this could mean more efficient management of resources while also allowing for more effective support for those communities they work with,” writes Rebecca. Read: How could AI be used to improve development? (Pro) + As part of Devex Pro week — five days of exclusive events, curated content, and deep dives — today we're looking into how AI is redefining sectors, bringing both exciting opportunities and important responsibilities. To help you navigate this complex landscape, we invite you to our event How will AI change development? Register now. Can’t attend live? Register anyway and we’ll send you a recording. If you’re not a Devex Pro member yet, we’re offering a 15-day free trial and $100 off an annual membership to celebrate Pro Week — sign up now to access all the special content this week and for the rest of the year. Moving the line The World Health Organization is taking some heat — from its own staff. In late June, about 3,000 WHO staff attended an online town hall meeting on a new agency-wide policy that would require international staff on fixed-term and continuing appointments to move to a different duty station on two-, three-, or five-year rotations. WHO has been trying to encourage its staff to voluntarily move from duty station to duty station since 2016, but with little success. This time, the plan is to make that move mandatory. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it’s a key part of WHO’s transformation agenda, whose objectives include driving the health agency’s impact at the country level. But some staff are unhappy with the policy. Some of them don’t see how it will make WHO more effective on the ground, and it has made staff with families anxious. One anonymous staffer commented during the town hall that the policy is making them choose between their careers and those of their spouses. There are others, however, that are supportive of the policy, saying it’s “long overdue.” Professionals who stay for too long in one place risk losing their purpose and motivation, they argue, which is “bad” for them, the organization, and the people WHO is expected to support. Amid a barrage of concerns, WHO management has decided this week to keep the policy voluntary until 2024, and mandatory implementation won’t start until 2025. Exclusive: WHO postpones mandatory employee rotation after pushback from staff The $2M question If there’s one issue for which WHO has been heavily criticized over the past few years, it’s the handling of sexual misconduct cases after the media exposed how WHO staff were involved in a large-scale, sex-for-work scheme that exploited and abused women in the DRC during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak response. One of the hotly contested issues is whether WHO is providing enough support to the victims and survivors. WHO has established a $2 million fund to support survivors of sexual violence in finding work, receiving psychological support, and pursuing legal cases in local courts. But a member of the Independent Commission that WHO set up to initially investigate cases in the DRC says the organization’s support is “not sufficient.” The agency needs to do more, such as providing victims with scholarships, since not all of them “want to be hairdressers or tailors,” says Hervé Gogo — who has been tasked to review WHO’s efforts to implement the commission’s recommendations to date. He also says that member states need to make it possible for WHO to provide victims financial compensation, “without waiting” for court decisions. Read: Review finds WHO support for DRC sex abuse survivors 'not sufficient’ A victim of its own success “HIV and AIDS … rose to the level of being on the political agenda 20 years ago because they saw death and despair. That is not the case anymore.” --— Angeli Achrekar, UNAIDS deputy executive director of programs and U.N. assistant secretary-general Unlike in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when getting an HIV diagnosis was a death sentence, today people living with HIV have longer, healthier lives, Achrekar tells me. While that’s true — UNAIDS’ latest data showed fewer people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2022, compared to 2004, when global HIV/AIDS deaths reached 3.4 million — the job is not yet done, she says. AIDS still claimed an average of one life every minute in 2022, and HIV continues to disproportionately affect certain members of the population. HIV prevalence was 11 times higher among gay men, and men who have sex with men, than the general population aged 15 to 49 years old. “It is a pandemic, and we need everyone stepping up to finish what we all started — to end this thing,” Achrekar says. Read: HIV/AIDS has 'fallen off' the political agenda, says UNAIDS official What we’re reading A new report shows global health organizations have few policies in place to ensure female staff's well-being. [The Guardian] UNAIDS says criminalization undermines efforts to prevent new HIV infections. [Politico] The best medicine for improving global health? Reduce inequality. [Nature] Sara Jerving contributed to this edition of Devex CheckUp.