USAID administrator Rajiv Shah, right, speaks Thursday at a meeting in Washington, D.C. on country ownership of health programs. Left are Dr. Salif Samake, a senior Mali health official, and Rosann Wisman, director of the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global HealthCredit Dominic Chavez

As originally seen at Global Post.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — One of the Obama administration’s key strategies in saving millions of lives of people in the developing world is to do something that on the surface sounds straightforward: let the countries themselves set the agenda and be in charge.

The idea is that countries know what’s best for them.

This principle is one of the foundations of Obama’s Global Health Initiative, but a roundtable on Thursday organized by the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health (MLI) showed why it’s not so simple. Still, several senior US officials said they were committed to building up country ownership, along with systems that closely monitor spending.

Looking around a room of several other senior US officials, developing country leaders, and heads of non-governmental organizations that do tens of millions of dollars of work in health around the world, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah told the group: “We are here in force today because we want to learn about country ownership in order to shift the way we work to adopt these principles, and take on that task and challenge.”

Shah reminded the group that the potential long-term benefits of successful programs “under the leadership of strong country leaders” were huge: “We’re looking at the end of AIDS, we’re looking at the end of child deaths from malaria, and more broadly we’re starting to see a vision — 10 or 15 years away — of eliminating all preventable child deaths.” Experts estimate that 6 million children die each year from preventable illnesses.

But how do donors take such goals and also listen to country leaders’ priorities in health, and then find common ground? And what about Congress’ major concerns about letting developing countries decide how to spend U.S. assistance?

Continue reading at Global Post.