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Global Health Matters
The Inside Track: the pope, the Force and the hope
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The Inside Track is a new series from Global Health Matters offering context, clarity and foresight that you won’t find in traditional news shows. Each episode brings host Garry Aslanyan together with two recurring voices: Catherine Kyobutungi, who brings insight from the frontlines of health research and policy in Africa, and Ricardo Baptista Leite, a physician and global thinker on health, politics and AI. Together, they unpack the headlines with candid conversations grounded in lived experience. If you work in global health and want a better understanding of what’s happening, why it matters and what to watch out for, this series is for you.
What do the pope, the Force and a dose of hope have in common? In this episode of The Inside Track, we discuss planetary health—the idea that human health is inseparable from the health of the planet. The discussion underscores how factors like climate, food and living conditions drive most health outcomes, far beyond clinical care. Host Garry Aslanyan and recurring expert-pundits Catherine Kyobutungi and Ricardo Baptista Leite call for a shift from reactive health systems to prevention, and for rethinking “development” to prioritise sustainability alongside human wellbeing.
Clipping: “Global health governance in transition” — a brief discussion on reimagining global health through new partnerships and stronger local ownership.
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So, maybe to summarize the Pope, the Force and the Hope? Welcome to the Insight Track, a series from the Global Health Matters podcast. In this series, we step inside the conversations shaping global health, the debates, the dilemmas, and the decisions that don't always make the headlines. Each episode features two recurring expert pandets, Catherine Chibotungi and Riccardo Battista Lee, offering informed independent analysis grounded in lived experience. Consider this your invitation to the insight. Hi and welcome back to our second episode of the Insight Track. As you know, it's the new series from Global Health Matters where we unpack the current developments and issues in the field of global health, healthcare, and what it means to you, our listeners. I'm usually joined by Katrin and Ricor Ricardo. Ricardo, Catherine, so say hi, please.
SPEAKER_02Hello.
SPEAKER_04Hello.
SPEAKER_00Hi, so great. I heard very good feedback on the Insight Tracks so far. How about you?
SPEAKER_04I've had great feedback from my family.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's a hard test to pass.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm not sure my family listened, but uh the feedback I did get was uh was also very positive, mostly because of Catherine, but okay.
SPEAKER_00Well maybe because you're really here in your personal capacities, you really share your honest thoughts and uh not carefully polished institutional talking points. How about that as one of the reasons?
SPEAKER_02I agree. I think uh people uh today want uh authentic conversations more than anything. Uh we miss that.
SPEAKER_04Um for me sometimes it's hard to draw boundaries, so I don't know in which capacity I'm speaking. I find it hard to compartmentalize my thoughts. So whatever comes out, um I'll probably say it in an official capacity or non-official, but it's good. I'm not this is not an official position. I think it's good to keep that in mind.
SPEAKER_00Great. So we keep that. And today we let's um um unpack a topic, which is our main topic, um, that um I wanted us to talk about. You know, global health is full of terminology, and there's a new term invented every year. Now that's that's a thing, um, no judgment. Um and there are many terms, and one that really caught my attention in the last few years is what is called planetary health. Um, and and it it's not uh that it puzzles me, it's more like I'm trying to understand and I really am uh uh interested to know when I say planetary health, um, what does that mean to you? Maybe Ricardo, you can start followed by Catherine.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh I think it's it's actually a very interesting term that uh one which connects in a way to one health, I would say, in the sense that it's uh how everything is interconnected, uh, how health uh of humans and animals are not in any way uh distinguished from the ecosystems in which they live. Um, you know, I I'm a Roman Catholic, so uh I'm gonna use a Pope Francis reference uh with um his encyclica called Laudato Si, where he precisely was reminding the world on how we were all interconnected, and we perhaps should consider actually slowing down instead of constantly speeding up, as humanity tends to do, to maximize the resources that the planet has provided us so that we can live uh fulfillful lives with quality of life and well-being. But you know, taking it more to the science fiction space, uh in Star Wars, for example, it's what people will call the force. Uh, it's the energy that connects everything. And so in using these examples, I hope people can understand where I'm going in terms of how our health as individuals is dependent on what surrounds us. And the truth is, when I have a patient in front of me, uh I'm analyzing their clinical status, which actually only impacts 10% of what is their health status. 30% of their health is influenced by genomic and biological factors. 60% of each individual's health status is influenced by what we call exogenous factors, which include the quality of the air we breathe, the conditions in which we work and live, the kind of food we eat today at lunch if we're going for that salad or McDrive for that burger and fries. And so those decisions, those externalities impact our lives and our health status in 60%, yet, health systems around the world tend to forget them. We only focus on the 10% of clinical factor. And that's why our disease our health systems are broken. They're disease-driven models. They are reactive to when we get sick instead of focusing on quality of life and well-being, which should take all of these issues of climate and the planet that surrounds us. And that's the way I see planetary health in our context.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's good. Catherine, how about you? What does come to your mind when I use that term?
SPEAKER_04So um interestingly, this this time is actually more than 10 years old. And um, I think it's it made its entrance into the world through the Lancet Planetary Health Commission. Um, I think it was Lancet and Rockefeller Foundation. And I got exposed because my former boss was actually one of the commissioners. So, and when this report came out, uh, it was so fascinating reading this report and seeing how really there was like this new thinking that had come out of, you know, the work that this commission had done. And I think I think Ricardo has said much of it. And, you know, when you when you when you hear the definition of health from the World Health Organization, it tells health is not the mere absence of disease and it's this, this, and that. So what plant air health does is that actually human health is not just about us as human beings, it's about the health of the natural systems of the planet on which we live. And so we need we need to stop looking at health just from, you know, the human body and how what we're able to measure, that plantary health takes into account human health, which is a function of a livable planet. And so it goes on about the acknowledgement that the the gains we've achieved in terms of human health, whether it's in the improvement in life expectancy and all that, have been at the expense of the environment. And we are reaching a point where perhaps uh it will be untenable to sustain human health, unless the systems that make up the planet that keep the all these planetary boundaries, if we keep on breaching them, then human health on its own, regardless of what we do, is going to be untenable. And therefore, when we think about health, we should look at the health of ourselves as interconnected with the health of the planet. So we look at the two things and not just one and not the other.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04So I think that's that's like the uh it's it's a very fascinating um, you know, framework of looking at health. And uh, I mean there are many, there are many, many things up there, but I think at upfront that's what comes to mind.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for that. So for a long time we've treated human health and health of the planet as separate issues, uh, but clearly increasingly we can't really do that. And planet really doesn't operate in according to how we define things. So climate change and pollution, pandemics, food, etc., what you've mentioned both really uh need to be connected, and that seems to be a term that uh resonates. Um at least you see that as a term that needs to resonate. So, from if we were to look at it a bit closer, um, and why and how can we convince people that protecting nature is really a public health strategy and not just an environmental strategy, and why those things uh cannot be seen as independent. So, how how do we do that? Or what are your thoughts on this? Catherine, you want to go first?
SPEAKER_04Yes, I mean I think um um when you read the report, it gives it it's quite compelling when you look at it. Because the report, for instance, shows how you know, if you look over even up to the 19th century, what has happened in terms of several things. And it makes the case that at the rate, the rate at which this change is happening, there has to be some kind of like breaking point. And we can't pretend that that breaking point is not is not somewhere in the foreseeable future. And it sort of calls upon us to imagine that um everything is going up, carbon dioxide emissions are going up, or said ocean acidification is going up, um, the amount of um, you know, harmful substances in soil is going up because we are we keep we keep we keep on producing food, the amount of water consumption is going up. So the world does not have unlimited, infinite resources. And so if you keep if you keep mapping the population growth onto these things that are happening, at some point it becomes clear that um it's not an it's not uh it's not sustainable to pretend that the the planet is going to accommodate everything we do, the number of people, what we eat, what we want, the energy consumption, there's a limit at which you know uh all uh you know hell we broke we break loose. So that's one thing. But I think what what's important in the report, again, that's what that's why I'm I'm deriving this, is that uh it's important to understand for everybody to understand the concept of planetary health, because that lack of understanding keeps on driving the kinds of choices that we make. And we make choices based on economic development, quote unquote. We want to see economic development, but you have to ask yourself, is there one way of developing? You know, I look around, I'll I'll just give an example. I come from um western Uganda and I went to school in a small town, and this small town is part of a district that was very known for producing milk and producing matoke. Matoke is the staple food for Uganda. But now when you go to that small town, all the milk farms that surrounded it, maybe in a 10-kilometer radius, have been converted into real estate. So milk farms have been sliced up into small plots of land and people are buying them and building houses. And the same is happening in Nairobi. I mean, there was a recent study which showed how the Nairobi metropolis, the this the food-producing areas around it have been converted into real estate. So you have to ask yourself at some point that it's not an it's not tenable that we want houses, but you're not thinking about the food-producing land that we are converting into concrete. Where's the food going to come from eventually? So it's not that we shouldn't build houses, yes, we should. But then we need to think about how we're going to produce food differently in future, how you're going to use water differently in future, because now we are we are sort of like mindlessly developing. I think maybe that's the critical point. That we need to develop, but we need to be mindful how we develop. And that it's not either, oh, we need to develop, yes, but we need to think about the environment, because development without thinking about the environment at some point will catch up with us. And it's everywhere. You know, Nairobi had floods last week. When we when we recorded the last episode, I said it had not flooded, and then I think the day after that it flooded.
SPEAKER_02Here you go.
SPEAKER_04Being washed away, and the hospitals are not accessible, and all sorts of things are happening. So we have to at some point we have to reach that point in our consciousness that we need certain things, but it's not at the expense of the physical systems in which we exist as a species.
SPEAKER_02Ricardo.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think what Catherine says is incredibly important, and if I may bring in then uh maybe a policy angle here, because I I think that's where part of our problem lies. The when we're discussing these issues of climate and health, um, or planetary health in general, to act upon the evidence and the science that has been produced over the last decade. We need politicians who are willing to invest in the future, understanding that if they are unsuccessful, this will have devastating consequences uh in in the years to come. If they are very successful, no one will notice. And that I would say is a fundamental problem, which is the cost of inaction. We as scientists we like to tell policymakers what they need to do based on the science and the evidence. But we don't focus enough on discussing what will happen if the politicians don't do anything. And choosing not to do anything is a political choice can which can have devastating consequences on people's lives, on our ecosystem. And so I believe that we as scientists, on one hand, we have to learn how to communicate in a different way. We have that responsibility, and the global health community listening, uh, all of us have to understand that it's not just about producing good science, it's how we convey that messaging so that it's compelling, so that we're making the case so that the policymakers can make the case to their constituents. But also we need to focus also on modeling in the sense, and I believe that a lot of the technologies that are arising right now can help us with this, modeling what that future will look like in different scenarios, keeping the status quo, changing the policies that today exist to focus on ones that can have positive or negative impacts, so that everyone, you don't have to be a specialist or an epidemiologist or a climate expert to understand what will happen in 10 years from now, not waiting for the next generation within your lifetime, if you do not do anything or if you do. And I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges, which is uh an old challenge for public health when we think about prevention, for example. And so we need to learn those lessons uh so that we can change our narrative and our way of engaging. And so ultimately, we you know, we like to blame the politicians, which uh I understand, but um maybe we need to blame ourselves sometimes as scientists, and we have to use the brain power and the collective intelligence of the scientific community to think if we're capable of generating the evidence, how do we translate evidence into change?
SPEAKER_00Okay. So, but Ricardo, let's say if you were to speak to a politician, how would you convince them that maybe that the most cost-effective sort of public health intervention is to protect planetary health or protect the health of the planet? Um, when uh they kind of also operate in a broader global sort of ecosystem with other countries, etc. How hard how hard does that become to actually uh convince them that that's part of what they can do rather than it's some global planetary issue others need to solve?
SPEAKER_01Well, I can share an example of my own life. Uh having you know been in local government, I was a deputy mayor when the the sustainable development goals were approved by the United Nations back in 2015. And what we decided to do, you know, the SDGs are this very global 17 goals that everybody uh has the ambition to reach by 2030. But what does that mean for a city of 200,000 people? Exactly. Yeah. And so what we did at the time was we tried to translate the 160 plus indicators into indicators that made sense to us at a local level. Give you one example. How under SDG3, universal health coverage is uh an indicator. What we translated into was making sure that every citizen has access to a family doctor, to a general to a general practitioner. And so we broke down all of those indicators into what we could measure at a local level, and then we we put that into a digital um dashboard. And so that way we could understand how the city was progressing on each of the indicators and each of the 17 goals. So every year, as we had to decide what the budget would be for the next year, we actually could look at that and see where we were lagging. Here's the interesting thing, Gary. The city where I was deputy mayor, Cashcaix at the time in Portugal, we had won every award you can think of in terms of clean energy. All right? When we did the dashboard, it was the goal where we were doing worse. And so it goes to show, first of all, many of these awards you see, maybe they're not that credible. But second of all, and most importantly, it doesn't matter how you're being praised, it matters what the outcomes are, how you're measuring them and the actions you take. And the mayor at the time was very courageous because we launched a dashboard one year before the election, and he wanted to make the case, saying, we don't care about the awards, we care about what we can actually do for change. And I think that level of local commitment is critical, but you have to translate those very ambitious global goals to the local level in a way that translates to people's lives. And then what we did was also involve the community. And so you start getting that buy-in at the local level from all stakeholders. And you know, if you replicate that city by city, country by country, then you can have a global impact, especially today when people are so hesitant to work at the multilateral level. You can, if you could translate the multilateral goals into what is beneficial at the local level, perhaps we stand a better chance.
SPEAKER_00So that's a a good um sort of example. And and maybe I can also ask you, Catherine, to link the flood of the last couple of weeks that you've seen. Do people that you've talked to, or you know, whoever is in your building or your restaurant that you went to understand how that means what that means to everyday life in terms of you know food, air, water, future of health systems. How do people connect those things? What have you experienced?
SPEAKER_04I mean, I think Ricardo raised a very good point about local action. And what I'll say is that um what there's a discernible sort of shift because I think for the maybe first, I don't know, 15 or 20 years, issues around climate change were global. So there are all these global debates, global commitments, global, and then somehow there was very little, there was almost some kind of inertia. And now things seem to have shifted back to local action. And I and I think I would also agree that local action collectively now becomes global because if everybody's doing the right thing at the local level, that's where change is going to happen. Now back to the question, I I think floods are obvious, floods are clear and they're visible. Things like air quality are not. And actually, African cities have some of the worst air quality indicators, but there's hardly any noise or any kind of thing about it. So when floods happen, there's some kind of noise, but most of the noise is about okay, what has the city done in terms of planning, in terms of drainage, and uh some other some other things which are coming up because of the the building code which has been flaunted for maybe the last 10 years and now things are catching up, you know, with us. But I think fundamentally, if I was to go back to um the question of you know, starting from local and what what local accountability is, one of the things which maybe academia can play a part in is is uh redefining what development is. In Kenya there's a running joke about Singapore because a lot of African countries want to be like Singapore. So development is tall, shiny buildings, it's it's uh super highways, it's it's it's it's that. That's how what we see as development. And maybe that's what we need. We need a new paradigm that says development is actually when you have clean air, you have clean water, maybe you have green areas, not tall buildings and not superhighways and not like traffic jams. That's not a sign of development. So even the development paradigm needs to be, the old one needs to be thrown out. And we come up with a new one. And then based on that paradigm, now communities can start asking for accountability from their, you know, decision makers or policymakers or politicians about that kind of development. And I'll just give one anecdote about I think there was there were some elections in the US around November, and apparently, um, by some reports, um, people who stood against AI and data center. In their local communities won the election. This is uh this is Ricardo's area. But but but people are aware that actually data centers are harmful. And they're demanding that unless XYZ happens, you're not going to put data centers in our communities that are going to destroy the environment, destroy the air, you know, like use up the clean water and all that stuff. And and and that public consciousness that yes, we want AI, but we want responsible AI, we want clean AI, those are the kinds of arguments that are going to do that. But if we want AI at all costs, we want, you know, buildings at all costs, we want cities at all costs, I think that's where the problem lies. And so for me, it's like um the there's a role for academia to redefine what development is and take away this uh obsession that development means more consumption and bigger buildings and more bigger cars and I don't know, more airplan airports and all that stuff. So we we shift our development to development that is healthy, that is good for human health, and not development for the sake of development. And then from there now we can see how we can hold our politicians accountable. Because if they say we are creating jobs, but at the same time, we are we've cut down 10% of the forest in the process of creating jobs, then we can question why you need to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'm so happy, if I may, Gary, just to say that Catherine brought in the concept of responsible AI.
SPEAKER_01And of course, I'm very close to my heart, but uh it's so important. I mean, especially now, and you're uh you're right, uh Catherine. I mean, the data centers they consume a lot of energy and so forth, and job generation is really not that significant. And so people are starting to understand that. And if you think that today the world energy, three to ten percent of world energy is already being diverted into AI development, directly or indirectly, tremendous amounts of water also into cooling refrigerating systems for data centers. I mean, all of this raises a lot of flags. Actually, when we use the term responsible AI, it includes the concept of sustainable from a climate perspective also. And so it's also in the developers' uh it's the developer's responsibility not only to continue to build bigger and bigger models, but actually how can we evolve the technology so it can be more powerful, consuming less energy, consuming less water. And so that's that's going to be a very important task in the future. The only conversation we're seeing really from these companies is how do we produce more energy? And uh I think a focus on different types of models would actually be more beneficial in the long term.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. So after listening to both of you and reflecting a bit more, so I maybe, and tell me if you agree. So planetary health is more of an objective, and people who work in different areas want to achieve planetary health, recognizing that protecting the well-being of the planet subsequently really supports our own health and well-being.
SPEAKER_02I think that's a fair assessment. It's a positive way to take it from here.
SPEAKER_04Yes, maybe what I would add is that it's not just our health and well-being. I think it's the survival of the species. Because actually Planet Health talks about human civilization, it doesn't just talk about health, it just goes beyond that. Our existence as on this planet that we have is dependent on a healthy planet. So it's not a short-term thing, actually, it's an ex an existential question that our existence as a species um is dependent on the natural systems that support where we where we are, where we live.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So uh maybe to summarize, hmm, the pope, the force and the hope. That's a that's maybe but the ending on a hope uh is always good. So I'm really hoping that those who listen to this who've encountered this term and then question themselves, you know, how does it relate to one health, how does it environmental health, climate change, and all of that, this helped them to clarify some of this, and this is what we do here on Insight Track. So let's move to the next segment, which is um the clipping. And today's clipping that you've seen is an article uh from Science Direct, uh, which is called Global Health Governance in Transition: A Time for New Leadership, New Ideas, New Partnerships by uh Gerald Bloom, Louis Hussein, and Mingwin Wren. And full disclosure, Wren was uh my boss as the Assistant Director General at WHO a few years ago. Um and and you may have read many articles in the last few months. I call it the reimagining fever, that everyone is reimagining what will come uh in for global health in the future. So um so what I liked about this article, and I'd like to hear from you, and also hoping that our uh listeners will go and look for it and also look for other articles to relate it to that, is the kind of suggest that the future may depend on new kinds of partnerships, you know, new things that we've never tried before across countries, sectors, disciplines, um, and and and all of that. So uh and then I'll quote uh one sentence from that article that says despite a context of global competition and contestation, there is a lot of agreement on key global health objectives. So let's unpack the article a little bit. I want to hear what you think of that. Um, and that particular phrase sounds very constructive to me. I'm hoping that uh we can uh look into that a bit um closer. So, how do you think these changes uh in future global health governance and how we approach that uh will uh kind of pan out in terms of you know priorities or resources, or ultimately um what would it mean for health of different countries, communities, and the planet overall? Uh who wants to get started?
SPEAKER_04Okay, I'll go first. Um yes, I mean I think I like the article, I like the framing, I like the title. And I think the common thread is that we need new things, new ways of thinking, new partnerships, uh, new models, and a lot of other things. And of course, much of what's in the article, of course, there are some new elements, some have been also put forward in other articles and commentaries and and reports and debates. And of course, it it borrows from other reports which have come up and that have sort of supported the this reimagining fever, as you've called it. That's it, that's a new one. And so I I agree with that that we need we need a new way of doing things. Um maybe my point of departure goes back to what Ricardo said earlier. Um where should change start from? And where should we put our emphasis? And I'll still go back and say that change starts from the bottom because the the top from the top-down change maybe has not done what it's intended to do, or maybe it has run its course. And right now, where we need to put the emphasis is at the bottom, um, you know, top uh bottom up. And so for me, where the biggest change needs to happen, it needs to happen inside countries, it needs to happen inside communities. That is mentioned, you know, in the article. And uh and and again, uh for that to happen, the change which needs to happen elsewhere, you know, outside the local, outside the national, is a change in the head. And I've called this before mental models. For me, that's the biggest change that actually needs to happen. Um the assumption of responsibility that over time creates dependency where people should assume responsibility and not maybe given the chance to take up responsibility because somebody's always there to help them and save them and solve their problems. So I see a lot of emphasis, yes, countries need to start redefining their priorities, countries need to do this, country needs to put finance. And many of that, where is that coming from? Much of it is coming from outside the countries, and they are telling them what things they need to do. And the good thing that I like about this is that a lot of it is framed around the Africa CTC report. And and so my hope is that okay, these African countries saying actually what they what they want. And so so for me, the mental models is about where when do we step away and let countries figure out things and you know, make get it wrong and eventually get it right. Because there's hard, I think there's almost like there's no room for countries to get it wrong before they get it right. Of course, that might mean lives lost, but over in the longer term, maybe it might be, you know, things might even out and then you have more lives saved. So there's a certain mental thing that is that exists within us that just cannot let go. I was in one forum where somebody said that the biggest thing you need to do is to let go of, like let go. And uh, of course, it's hard to unpack what does let go mean. So I would say like within countries, some of course change needs to happen. And outside the countries, um, like some kind of let's see how countries figure this out themselves. Because I think it's been for very many years, uh countries have not been allowed to breathe and to think for themselves because somebody's always there to solve their problems. So we have we have a political class that is okay to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, these are very big problems, help us, even when they could help themselves, because somebody is ready to help. And so if somebody's ready to help, then you keep on saying, okay, I'm sure they're going to come and help. So the I like I was I was quite optimistic, like at the beginning of, you know, the middle of last year, when all these debates were happening. But then I see now we are sort of falling back to the same old, same old um, where countries were waiting to write out things and all of a sudden um we're being told, yeah, things are actually not working and the old system needs to come back. And I don't think we've given it we've given time this new thinking to actually take root before we can make conclusions about whether the old system was needs to come back or not. And maybe the old system needs to come back in a different way. And and we need to help, but with limits. And again, we need to do things that break dependency. Uh we might solve short-term problems, but we must build in a mechanism of breaking dependency. But if we short if we solve short-term problems in ways that perpetuate dependency, then we're not solving any problem. And this reimagining, I think, will maybe take us back to all previous reimaginings. That nothing gets reimagined and nothing gets reformed. Yeah, so yeah, how do we shift things, decision making and power and agency back to local, national? And then everything else follows that.
SPEAKER_00Maybe Ricardo, you can pick that up and also tell us what you think of the article.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh I agree with Catherine, and um I think the article is quite interesting in its focus on from the Africa CDC report, really looking at how low and middle income countries in general, in this case with a particular focus in Africa, are changing their stance when it comes to international aid and support. I would only argue, maybe, with the article, in the sense that I don't agree that it the US exit of the WHO and of the development aid arena is the main factor causing this. I think it was an accelerator. I think this was a phenomenon in the making. I would highlight perhaps two factors that were leading to this. One was the fact that low and middle-income countries are developing economies in the sense they are emerging economies, I mean, in the sense that their economies are growing. And so as they become more capable of investing themselves, they are not willing to just take orders, as Catherine said, and follow uh external voices and views on how they should lead their own sovereign nations. Secondly, the great accelerator was COVID. And there was a sense of injustice, fair or not, in many uh African countries and low and middle income countries around the world, regarding the way vaccine distribution happened and so forth. Many of those sentiments were actually not founded on truth, but the perception stayed. And it led to an idea, a reinforced idea, that countries are always that are in on the continent of Africa are consistently left behind, particularly in times of emergency. And so, you know, um the Lusaka agenda, then the the AC, the Africa CDC report, uh more recently the the Accra reset trying to position Africa, not saying that African countries reject international aid, but they want to have a seat at the table to discuss how that investment will be made. And so I think that's actually a positive step into the future. And I hope actually that we can build from there. Because we if we because what we've seen and uh from past experiences, a lot of these international development aids that go into countries, they're not sustainable. You know, the way we saw how when the US exited, how many programs simply collapsed. Uh, there was a case, uh, Catherine, maybe you certainly know this, in Kenya, on how electronic health records lost all of their data as soon as USAID shut down their funding and support. This is a calamity. This is a disaster. And now we're starting to see a rise of a movement of aid for data, where countries are willing to give international development aid, funding, but in the contract, they want to take the people's data, which has become, of course, a very valuable commodity. But data should be perceived as a sovereign commodity, something that countries need to protect. It should not be put as a negotiation token in international aid. And so I'm somewhat concerned, on one hand, of how this is evolving. The second thing I'm concerned, going back to what Catherine said about the Singapore exam, how many nations see Singapore as a reference, many times uh development aid is designed with this concept that we want countries to leapfrog into a future, considering that the future in the so-called global north is the way to go. But the truth is, that's probably wrong. In many ways, we should learn from the mistakes we've made in the so-called global north and take a new path altogether, using the opportunity of absence of legacy systems to make uh a shift and actually from low and middle-income countries try to learn how we can actually get better in the global north. And that's a mindset shift that I think that now with the intelligence revolution driven by artificial intelligence should be a driver. And I don't see that conversation also sufficiently existent. Although the authors do talk about digital transformation, I think the opportunities of the AI revolution are much greater when rethinking the way we should invest in what we call development aid. I would also add that you know, new financial models are always important. There was a mention of um, you know, debt swaps. Uh, this is something that Africa CDC is now investing. Actually, Geneva's own Christoph Ben has just been appointed as an advisor to the Africa CDC, as was uh put into news by DevEx, uh, precisely to advise the Africa CDC on how to foster debt swaps, because a lot of countries are drowning in debt. They can't breathe. And this is a way, it won't be a long-term solution, but it is a way to kick start a lot of development actions in the region. I would also say that another big change that is necessary is the role of the private sector. You know, we're always talking about international aid, we're talking about governmental funding, domestic funding. I think with the ACRA reset, the idea of domestic funding along with international aid will be important. But we also need to include the private sector who has the responsibility, but also has a role to play in international development. And the truth is, many governments and international organizations still see the private sector involvement as negative. And that thought that perception issue undermines the relationship between what public and private sectors, which could actually foster and accelerate development. So I think there's a lot to unpack here. Uh we don't have time. This could do a whole new show.
SPEAKER_00Right, right.
SPEAKER_01Opportunities are are great. And uh I'm hoping that this shift in mentality can lead to a shift into into effective development.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So um the well, just to say that uh I look at it that we are looking at as if either or like one thing has to replace the other. At the same time, probably it just has to be different. I mean, that kind of sort of link between who used to kind of fund uh and receive. And Catherine, I I I'm I'm now worried that you see that trend going back to it. Um it it's it's just it still can be there. It just can be should be there differently, doing different things. I think that's where uh we need to really get over that, that it's really uh not going back to the old uh but doing new things differently. Okay, so um thank you for that. Um, and as uh both of you said, this will we're living this, uh so maybe we'll come back later and see how things are going in a few months in this area. So last one is usually when we give kudos. So this is the kudos section. Uh maybe Catherine, you can give kudos to someone or something this week or this time.
SPEAKER_04Yes, um I I thought about this. There are many people that I could give kudos to, but I wanted to connect back to this the episode we had last week, uh, which was about um horses, broken chairs, and audiences and the whole the whole um uh information integrity thing. And the person I wanted to give kudos to is a gentleman from Texas. I've never met him, I only met him on Twitter. And I met him, I think, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he's uh he's called um Dr. Peter Hortes. And I don't think he watches Global Health Matters, but if he does, he was a guest. He was a guest, yes, he was. So that would be my kudos to this gentleman. He's uh a vaccinologist, he's um um, you know, he's he he works at some, I think, pediatric hospital in Texas. And he's been putting up this valiant fight against um misinformation and disinformation all throughout. Like when people fled X, he said, I'm going to stay, it's unpleasant. He gets threats all the time, all the time. People are threatening him. Just I think yesterday somebody put like a noose that this guy needs to be hanged, I don't know for what. And he's been so valiantly fighting um all this. And the and his theory says, I don't get money from pharma, uh, this is how much money I make as a lecturer. I've published a book and I gave away all the proceeds. He actually dropped the vaccine, uh, I think which is used in um in some of the uh the Asian countries, and it was just given like no at no huge you know profit. So I think is I think for me it's like a shining example of um the scientist of 2026. Um do your stuff, do good stuff, and um and stick, stick, uh, stick up for the for the fight and stick up for science. So my kudos go to Dr. Peter Hotes, all the way from Texas. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Great, thank you. We'll need to find a way for you to meet him. Uh Ricardo, what's your kudos uh today?
SPEAKER_01Well, actually, today I'm I'm mentioning an institution uh that I want to send my kudos out that Catherine has already mentioned earlier, which is the Rockefeller Foundation. And kudos to them because they published a report last week called From Farm From Farm to Food is Medicine, the economic impact of local food is medicine. And basically, uh, and they're investing a hundred million US dollars on what they're proclaiming. So it's not just a report, um, in this case US focused, where they're looking at how um it models actually how the economic and health impact of scaling food is medicine programs, uh, which means healthcare systems prescribe medically tailored meals or Reduce patients with diet-related illnesses that get access to these tailored meals. This alone, they believe, based on their modeling, could have an impact of more than 40 million citizens in the US alone, so about a quarter of their population, with 45 billion US dollars in terms of economic impact, more than 300,000 jobs to be created, more than 5.6 billion in new revenue for small and medium enterprises that related to farms that prior to prioritize local food sourcing. And in terms of health, doing such a program would have an impact of 13.6 billion US dollars in annual health care savings beyond the fact that, and the reasons because of that leads to that is because of how it is capable of reducing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, uh hypertension, and so forth. And so in an era of processed food and where sadly, especially food insecurity and poverty push people towards tremendously unhealthy diets, this is a stark reminder that we need to put pro nutrition front and center uh when we're talking about ensuring health, quality of life, and well-being for citizens starting in our childhoods. And so uh I think it's a very important report. I hope they can take the program beyond the US uh to many other parts of the world.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great. And my kudos go to Wilfrid Botombo Kalonji, who was a guest in our podcast and a year and a half ago or so, who told us how he worked with the initiative to find a new treatment for sleeping sickness. Uh and now uh they have been successful. So there's a new drug uh that is really uh being approved by I think the European Medicines Agency. And before, in the episode, he said people actually had to die from the treatment because it was so toxic, and now the treatment that he worked on is basically three pills uh and uh within one day, and it's even effective to uh those who are in severe kind of situations. So kudos to Wilfred for getting over that um trials and all of that that he had to work on. And I actually think that sleeping sickness is directly linked to planetary health. We talked about earlier today, because it's really parasite, you know, then there's a fly, and there is really the animal that is the reservoir, and then the humans, and all of that has been clearly connected, and now we have a really easy way to deal with that really uh terrible uh disease. So, um, as our listeners have seen, uh global health is quite complicated. Look at what's what we've covered in the last you know few uh minutes or under the hour. So our job is is to really unpack that for you and preferably uh making sense and helping you to make sense out of that all. So thank you, Catherine, and thank you, Ricardo, for uh joining uh the show today again.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, Gary. Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the inside track. If you'd like to keep getting the inside view on global health, subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Have a topic you want us to unpack or a debate we should go deeper on, send those our way. This conversation is better when you are part of it. Until next time, stay curious and stay on track. To learn more about the topic discussed in this episode, visit the episode web page where you will find additional readings, show notes, and translations. Don't forget to get in touch with us via social media, email, or by sharing a voice message. And be sure to subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcast. Global Health Matters is produced by TBR, a United Nations co sponsored research program based at the World Health Program. Thank you for listening.
