The What Works Working Group
The What Works Working Group was brought together under the auspices of the Center for Global Development's Global Health Policy Research Network, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Fifteen experts in international health, development economics, public policy, and other fields participated as members of the working group. Their efforts were supported through a close working relationship with the Disease Control Priorities Project of the Fogarty International Center of the US National Institutes of Health, which has recruited many of the world's leading authorities to prepare state-of-the-art papers on specific health conditions and dimensions of health systems.
The Working Group followed a series of steps to select the cases represented in this book:
- established the criteria for "success" and agreed upon what would constitute adequate evidence. The criteria were scale, importance, impact, duration, and cost-effectiveness;
- solicited candidate cases from the experts recruited by the DCPP;
- based on the suggestions and background materials provided by the DCPP authors, as well as additional library research and consultation, determined which cases best fit the criteria for success and had the strongest evidence base - supported by peer-reviewed journal articles and official project evaluations;
- prepared case write-ups based on documentary information and interviews with key informants; and
- asked technical experts knowledgeable about the interventions to review the write-up to correct errors of fact.
Members of the What Works Working Group
Ruth Levine, Chair, Center for Global Development Ruth Levine is Senior Fellow and Director of Programs at the Center for Global Development (CGD) and head of CGD's Global Health Policy Research Network. An expert on health and education, she was previously a Senior Economist at the World Bank and Social Sectors Advisor at the Inter-American Development Bank. She has worked in 14 developing countries and on global programs such as the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunization. Ms. Levine holds a doctoral degree in economics and public health from Johns Hopkins University and is coauthor of The Health of Women in Latin America and the Caribbean.
George Alleyne, Pan American Health Organization (retired) A native of Barbados, George Alleyne joined the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) in 1981 as chief of Research Promotion and Coordination. From 1995 to 2003 he served as Director of PAHO. In 1990, Dr. Alleyne was made Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to medicine and, in 2001; he was awarded the Order of the Caribbean Community. Sir George Alleyne was appointed by the UN Secretary-General in February 2003 to serve as his Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean Region. In July 2003, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) appointed Dr. Alleyne as the head of a new commission to examine health issues confronting the region, including HIV/AIDS, and their impact on national economies. In October 2003, he was appointed Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.
Victor Barbiero, George Washington University. Victor Barbiero is a Visiting Associate Professor of Global Health in the Department of Global Health and Director of Student Programs. Prior to joining GWU, Barbiero was a Foreign Service Officer with the United States Agency for International Development for 21 years in Washington, East Africa, and India. He served as Deputy Director for Population, Health, and Nutrition in the East Africa Regional Office in Kenya and as Director in Ethiopia and India. He also served as Chief of the Child Survival Division and Chief of the Implementation Support Division for HIV/AIDS in Washington. Barbiero worked on tropical disease epidemiology in Sudan with Michigan State University and with the World Health Organization in Burkina Faso, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Liberia.
Scott Barrett, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University Scott Barrett is professor of international political economy at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He has published widely on the strategy of negotiating international environmental agreements, including the book, Environment and Statecraft: the Strategy of Environmental Treaty-Making. In addition, Professor Barrett has advised a number of international and other organizations, including the European Commission, the Global Environment Facility, the OECD, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law, various agencies of the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Commission on the Oceans.
Mariam Claeson, World Bank Mariam Claeson is Program Coordinator for HIV/AIDS in the Human Development Network, South Asia Region, of the World Bank. Previously, she was the Lead Public Health Specialist in the Health, Nutrition and Population, Human Development Network managing the HNP Millennium Development Goals work program to support accelerated progress in countries. She coauthored the health chapter of the Poverty Reduction Strategy source book. Before joining the World Bank, Claeson worked with WHO for several years as program manager for the WHO Global Program for the Control of Diarrheal Diseases (CDD). She has several years of field experience, working in developing countries, in clinical practice at the rural district level (in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Bhutan); in national program management on immunization and diarrheal disease control (Ethiopia 1984-1986); and in health sector development projects in middle- and low-income countries.
Mushtaque Chowdhury, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee Foundation A native of Bangladesh, Mushtaque Chowdhury is the Deputy Executive Director of the Research and Evaluation Division of BRAC (formerly known as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) in Bangladesh. He has also played a crucial role throughout the expansive introduction or Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT)by BRAC in Bangladesh. His work has spanned the globe by working in China, Ethiopia, Nepal, and Thailand, and he has been a regular consultant to governments in South Asia and Africa as well as multilateral organizations including UNICEF, the World Bank, and the Red Cross.
William Easterly, New York University William Easterly is a professor of economics at New York University, joint with Africa House,and co-director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is also a nonresident Fellow of the Center for Global Development. He spent 16 years as a research economist at the World Bank. He is the author of the acclaimed books, The White Man’s Burden: How the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Penguin, 2006) and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT, 2001). Easterly's areas of expertise are the determinants of long-run economic growth and the effectiveness of development assistance efforts. He has worked in many areas of the developing world, most extensively in Africa, Latin America, and Russia. Easterly is an associate editor of the Journal of Development Economics and an Editor of the Berkeley Electronics Press Journal of Economics and Growth of Developing Areas.
Robert Hecht, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Robert Hecht is currently Senior Vice President of Public Policy at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). Hecht has had a 20-year tenure at the World Bank, most recently serving as Manager and Acting Director of the Bank's central unit for Health, Nutrition, and Population, responsible for global strategies, knowledge, technical services and partnerships. His other positions at the Bank included Chief of Operations for the World Bank's Human Development Network, Principal Economist in the Latin America region and one of the authors of the 1993 World Development Report, "Investing in Health." From 1998 to 2001, Hecht served as an Associate Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
Dean Jamison, University of California, Los Angeles Dean Jamison is Professor of Development Economics at the University of California, San Francisco and, concurrently (for 2006–2008) the T. & G. Angelopoulos Visiting Professor of Health and International Development in the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health, Harvard University. Before joining the UCSF and Harvard faculties, Jamison had been at UCLA (1988–2006) and previously at the World Bank where he was a senior economist in the research department, division chief for education policy, and division chief for population, health, and nutrition. In 1992-93 he temporarily rejoined the World Bank to serve as lead author for the Bank's 1993 World Development Report, Investing in Health. In 1994 he was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Carol Medlin, University of California - San Francisco Carol Medlin is a faculty member at the Institute for Global Health at the University of California, San Francisco. Her current work focuses on the evaluation and assessment of a variety of global health initiatives and international health projects. At the request of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she leads a team conducting an evaluation of a Rotary-sponsored malaria control project in Vanuatu. She is a contributing author to the second edition of the OUP volume on Disease Control Priorities in developing countries and she co-authored the final report of the external review of Roll Back Malaria (RBM), an international partnership dedicated to malaria control. Between 2000 and 2002, she served as Project Director of Working Group 2 of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health.
Anthony Measham, World Bank (retired) Anthony Measham has spent more than thirty years working on maternal and child health, family planning and nutrition in developing countries. Dr. Measham worked at the Population Council in the Latin American region and subsequently at the Ford Foundation in Dhaka as Program Officer and Project Specialist in Population, Community Health and Nutrition. He joined the World Bank in Washington, D.C. in 1982, and during his tenure worked in 25 developing countries. He has published more than seventy monographs, book chapters, and scientific articles. Since his formal retirement in 1999, Dr. Measham has continued to work for the World Bank as a consultant on immunization, nutrition, and public health. Since late 2001, he has been co-managing editor of the Disease Control Priorities Project.
Germano Mwabu, University of Nairobi Germano Mwabu, an associate professor of economics, is chairman of the Economics Department at the University of Nairobi. He was previously a senior research fellow and project director at the World Institute for Development Economics Research in Helsinki. He is a former dean of commerce and chairman of the Economics Department at Kenyatta University. He received his Ph.D in Economics from Boston University.
Blair Sachs, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Blair Sachs is a Program Officer in the Policy and Finance team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is responsible for developing and managing grants that explore and drive innovative policy and finance solutions to achieve sustainable improvements in global health outcomes. A significant portion of her work supports activities and grants of the HIV, TB, and Reproductive Health program. Previously, Blair managed health programs with CARE International in Ecuador and assisted the Juhudi Women's Association to initiate a medical dispensary in a rural ward in Tanzania.
William D. Savedoff, Social Insight William D. Savedoff is currently Senior Partner at Social Insight, an international consulting firm. Dr. Savedoff has worked extensively on questions related to improving the accessibility and quality of public services in developing countries for more than 15 years, first as an Associate Researcher at the Instituto de Pesquisa de Economia Aplicada (Rio de Janeiro) and later as an economist at the Inter-American Development Bank (Washington, DC), and the World Health Organization (Geneva). In addition to preparing, coordinating, and advising development projects in Latin America, Africa and Asia, he has published books and articles on labor markets, health, education, water, and housing.
Rajiv Shah, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Rajiv Shah is the director for Strategic Opportunities at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he leads efforts to explore new strategic areas of giving and manages the foundation's special projects portfolio, including grants to extend financial services to the poor; expand access to improved water, sanitation, and hygiene; and improve agricultural productivity to reduce poverty and hunger. Shah previously served as the foundation’s deputy director for Policy and Finance for Global Health and as its senior economist. Before joining the foundation, he served as a healthcare policy advisor on the Gore 2000 presidential campaign. He co-founded Health Systems Analytics and Project IMPACT and currently serves on boards for the Global Development Network, City Year Seattle, and Time to Vote.
Holly Wise, US Agency for International Development (retired) Holly Wise leads a consultancy practice, Wise Solutions LLC, which brings international development, corporate social responsibility, public–private alliance, and business development expertise to corporations, foundations and nonprofit organizations. She teaches enterprise development at Georgetown University’s graduate school of foreign service, and sits on the board of GlobalGiving, an online auction site for global development organizations. Wise is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She spent 26 years in the foreign service with USAID, achieving the diplomatic rank of Minister Counselor and is the founder and first Secretariat Director of the Global Development Alliance. Wise also served as USAID chair at the National Defense University where she taught political science, environmental courses, and published research on China.
Staff
Molly Kinder (2003-2005), Center for Global Development Molly Kinder was a program assistant at the Center for Global Development. Before joining CGD, she worked with Oxfam's trade policy and advocacy team, where she researched the policy implications of the impact of US agricultural subsidies on developing countries. She conducted research projects and served as a volunteer in Kenya, Mexico, and Chile and worked with the Hispanic community as a Jesuit Volunteer in Portland,Oregon.
Jessica Gottlieb (2005-present), Center for Global Development is a Program Coordinator at the Center for Global Development. She is a graduate of