Keynote Address: Investing in Global Public Goods
Joseph E. STIGLITZ
Recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001); Professor, Columbia University
 

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, has pioneered pathbreaking theories in the fields of economic information, taxation, development, trade, and technical change. As a policymaker, he served on and later chaired President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, and was Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. He is currently a professor at Columbia University, and has taught at Stanford, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford.

The issue of Research & Development (R&D) illustrates a broader challenge for global governance, which is to ensure the sufficient provision of global public goods - particularly knowledge-related goods needed to protect and promote health. Current investments in R&D and innovation for meeting health needs in developing countries are not sufficient. The existing model of R&D is not adequate when it comes to discovering and developing medicines and other health technologies, which in particular address the needs of markets with low purchasing power. These issues have been analysed and discussed in several processes at the World Health Organization. Finding a sustainable solution for issues related to the financing and coordination of R&D, however, needed more work. The Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG) will present its final report to the WHO in April 2012, and the World Health Assembly will in its 65th session in May 2012 discuss and decide on how the recommendations of this group should be taken forward.

The Graduate Institute, Geneva in collaboration with the Harvard Global Health Institute, USA and the University of Oslo, Norway is hosting a seminar with the purpose to provide a neutral platform that allows representatives of governments, international organisations, the private sector, NGOs and civil society at large to engage and share their perspectives and views on these issues as well as to inform and help prepare for the deliberations at the 65th session of the WHA.
More information about the full programme here

This Seminar is organised by the Global Health Programme
 

Free entrance
Registration required. Please register here
Auditorium Jacques-Freymond, rue de Lausanne 132, 1202 Geneva
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