BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:iCalendar-Ruby BEGIN:VEVENT CATEGORIES:Lecture,Presentation DESCRIPTION:Foreign Aid\, Development\, and Public Health in Africa\n\nLia Tadesse Gebremedhin is currently the Executive Director of the Harvard Mini sterial Leadership Program and a Professor of the Practice of Public Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. \n\nLia served as the Mi nister of Health of Ethiopia from March 2020 to February 2024 after serving as State Minister of Health from November 2018. As a Minister\, she spearh eaded the COVID pandemic response and helped her country navigate the pande mic with resilience. Before that\, she served as Program Director at the Un iversity of Michigan’s Center for International Reproductive Health Trainin g (CIRHT). She was also the Project Director of USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) at Jhpiego-Ethiopia and CEO and Vice Provost of St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC) in Addis Ababa\, where she led hospital service and academic reforms.\n\nLia is passionate about strengthening and reforming health systems and has received several recogni tions for her accomplishments in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic\, in advoca cy for gender equity\, access to quality health services and training\, and has published over 40 articles\, commentaries\, and papers. \n\nDuring he r tenure as minister\, Lia was co-chair of the COVAX AMC Engagement Group\, co-chair of the Global Financing Facility (GFF) Investors Group\, the Vice board chair of the Africa CDC\, and a member of the Gavi board and the WHO Executive Board. She currently serves on the board of Directors of JSI and Resolve to Save Lives\, as a Commissioner in the Lancet Commission of Inve sting in Health\, and serves on various Advisory boards including the Insti tute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washingt on\, the Center for Global Health Equity at the University of Michigan\, th e Advisory board for the Lancet Commission on Evidence-Based Implementation in Global Health\, and the Global Advisory Board for the QuEST Network at Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health. \n\nShe earned her medical degree from Jimma University\, specialty training in Obstetrics and Gynecology fro m Addis Ababa University\, and a master’s degree in health care administrat ion from Jimma University. \n\n \n\nAbstract:\n\n \n\nForeign Aid\, Develop ment\, and Public Health in Africa\n\nLia Tadesse Gebremedhin\, M.D\, MHA\n \nOver the years\, Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) has played a key r ole in enhancing economic and social progress and narrowing the equity gap\ , contributing to improved education\, health\, environmental sustainabilit y\, good governance\, gender equality\, and access to global public goods. \n\nWhen we look particularly at public health\, development assistance for health (DAH) to sub-Saharan Africa rose from roughly US$8 billion in 2005 to about US$27 billion in 2022\, even after pandemic-related spikes began t o level off. However\, the paradox between billions of ODA committed to Afr ica and the lack of visible results to match them remains a contradiction. Despite the increased committed funds\, a large portion of ODA never reache d the intended destination and has undermined the formation of sustainable universal health coverage financing models. This major concern regarding ai d ineffectiveness led to the adoption of the Paris Declaration in 2005. \n\ nThe Paris declaration advocated for collective commitment towards alignmen t with country priorities\, harmonization\, mutual accountability\, and man aging results to address the fragmentation\, lack of predictability\, and t he predominant financing of “inputs” rather than “outputs”. Despite this\, the challenges persisted\, signaling that the current architecture of offic ial development assistance is no longer fit for purpose.\n\nIn this backgro und\, recent cuts by global donors signal a rapidly evolving global develop ment landscape. This acute change is occurring on top of decreasing foreign aid years before the COVID-19 pandemic\, and it will have the greatest imp act on sectors like health and countries that are most reliant on ODA. The potential consequences of rapid ODA reductions are already becoming apparen t with disruptions in the procurement of essential supplies\, interruptions to care delivery\, and closures of research and development projects. The predicted long-term reversal of gains in morbidity and mortality is also al arming.\n\nAlthough these shifts in the global development ecosystem pose s erious challenges\, particularly for Africa\, they also bring tremendous op portunities to redesign strategic approaches towards building more resilien t health systems for the continent. In this lecture\, we will hear about th is journey of foreign aid and development in public health in Africa\, blen ded with my own experience as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health and a public he alth leader. DTEND:20251024T000000Z DTSTAMP:20260510T151038Z DTSTART:20251023T230000Z GEO:42.335609;-71.170517 LOCATION:Gasson Hall\, 100 SEQUENCE:0 SUMMARY:The Park Street Corporation Speaker Series presents Lia Tadesse Geb remedhin UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_50330686676389 URL:https://events.bc.edu/event/the-park-street-corporation-speaker-series- presents-lia-tadesse-gebremedhin END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR