About GHI

"It represents a new approach, informed by new thinking and aimed at a new goal: To save the greatest possible number of lives, both by increasing our existing health programs and by building upon them to help countries develop their own capacity to improve the health of their own people.”

– Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, August 2010

The Global Health Initiative (GHI) is an approach to instituting integrated, coordinated and results-driven global health investments. GHI strategically combines the skills of U.S. Government agencies to overcome global health challenges that threaten lives at home and around the world. GHI supports all U.S. Government agencies to work as one, governed by GHI Principles , throughout the 80 countries around the world where we work. Through GHI, the United States is maximizing investments to protect the American people, advancing America’s core values, and saving more lives. Success will be measured on making progress in three key areas of focus which are:

Investing in Women, Saving Mothers
GHI has brought the needs and potential of women and girls to the fore, working to redress gender-related inequalities, to promote the empowerment of women and girls, and to improve health outcomes for individuals, families and communities. Through GHI, the U.S. Government supports further progress to improve the health of women and girls and increase integrated programming to meet women’s comprehensive health needs, including a strong focus on reducing maternal mortality. Preventable maternal deaths still take the lives of too many women in the developing world.

Creating an AIDS-free generation
By providing prevention, care, and treatment to millions worldwide, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) brought hope to communities that had been decimated by AIDS. New scientific advances in prevention and treatment will enable PEPFAR to make an even greater impact as it works to treat more than 6 million people, prevent more than 12 million infections, and provide support to more than 5 million orphans.

Challenging ourselves and challenging the world
The world has made significant progress on the health-related Millennium Development Goals to truly attain them, all nations must come together to support commitments to global health. By 2015, the United States will meet new levels of achievement by leveraging investments through increased donations from partner countries and other funders, both public and private. Recipient nations must become stronger partners by taking greater steps to become more self-sufficient and self-reliant in building and managing their own health systems.

The GHI Principles

	“[W]e will not be successful in our efforts to end deaths from AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis unless we do more to improve health systems around the world, focus our efforts on child and maternal health, and ensure that best practices drive the funding for these programs.” – President Barack Obama, May 2009

• Increase impact through strategic coordination and integration for patients and for those involved in providing or paying for services.
• Support country ownership and invest in country-led plans.
• Build sustainability through health systems strengthening.
• Strengthen and leverage key multilateral organizations, global health partnerships, and private sector engagement because improving health outcomes is a shared responsibility.
• Implement a woman, girl, and gender equity approach both to improve health outcomes for women and to recognize that women are central to the health of families and communities.
• Improve metrics, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Promote research and innovation to identify what works.

What We’ve Accomplished

• Each year, U.S.-funded interventions in oral rehydration therapy, zinc and vitamin A supplementation, and basic immunizations save the lives of approximately 6 million children.
• Each year, the U.S. Government treats one billion episodes of child diarrhea, gives 100 million children immunizations, and provides pneumonia treatment to more than 75 million children.
• More than 70 percent of women receive at least some care during pregnancy.
• During the Obama Administration, the U.S. Government has achieved an 84 percent increase in the number of people receiving AIDS treatment, now reaching more than 3.2 million people.
• In 2010 alone, the U.S. Government supported HIV counseling and testing for nearly 33 million people and provided care and support for nearly 3.8 million orphans and vulnerable children.
• U.S. Government-supported research identified new tuberculosis (TB) screening guidelines that increased the accuracy of a diagnosis in persons living with HIV by 300 percent at no extra cost.
• A U.S. Government-supported basic care package for people with HIV combines multiple low-cost interventions at $10 per family per year, including access to safe water, and reduces diarrhea by up to 30 percent.
• Since 2009, the U.S. Government has leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars from the private sector.
• The U.S. Government provides 35–40 percent of donor-provided contraceptives to the developing world.
• The U.S. Government treats more than 1 million smear-positive cases of TB each year.
• View the most recent GHI Results.

Who Works on GHI

The Global Health Initiative was developed by the Obama Administration to offer an integrated approach to unify our government's investments in global health. This approach draws upon the expertise and programs of the core GHI agencies including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its other agencies, the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, as well as the Peace Corps and the Department of Defense. GHI supports better integration and coordination among programs at both the headquarters and most importantly, at the country-level under the leadership of our U.S. Ambassador. Our working partners include recipient countries, other governments and donors, the private sector and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) including the faith community.