From Aid to Equality
From the "aid agency" that nobody knew existed
We received this response to today's post on the Global Forum for Health Research, from Susan Jupp: Dear Professor Easterly,
It's not surprising that we are not known as an aid agency because we're
not one!
The report of the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank to which you refer is not yet available on the Bank's website so you probably saw an advance copy, perhaps still in draft. That could explain the lack of clarity in some points of your opening statement. For example, the survey of 400 "key researchers" was carried out in 2006 by a totally different evaluation team to the one that produced the IEG report. The Global Forum has since moved on.
We are actually an advocacy organization. The IEG report quotes from the Disease Control Priorities Project report (Jamison et al 2006), stating that the Global Forum for Health Research "took the most effective advocacy position" on the importance of research on developing country health problems and found that the arguments of the Global Forum and its predecessors have "galvanized global recognition that more research funding should be devoted to improving the health of the 85% of the world's population who lives in developing countries."
So researchers are only one of the stakeholder groups we work with. We work with policy-makers, civil society, the private sector, the media. And we would welcome suggestions from those reading this blog on how to be more effective.
In order to see at first hand how we work and who we work with, why not join our Forum 2009, to be held in Havana, Cuba, from 16 to 20 November? American citizens are fully able to participate. You can find details on the programme and registration on our website
Meanwhile thank you for helping build awareness of the work of the Global Forum for Health Research.
Susan Jupp
Head, External Relations