The Task Force for Child Survival: Secrets of Successful Coalitions

by William H. Foege, Jimmy Carter (Foreword by)

Overview

How did coalition-building give rise to the incredible achievements of the Task Force for Childhood Survival?

Dr. Bill Foege, one of the best-known names in global health, brings readers to the table during the creation of one of the world’s most famous and successful global health efforts—the Task Force for Child Survival.

In 1984, the US immunization program was so successful that many childhood diseases were at record lows—yet 40,000 children a day were dying around the world from preventable diseases. That year, Dr. Foege, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, came together with Jonas Salk, Robert McNamara, and representatives from UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Rockefeller Foundation to see how some of the lessons learned in America could be applied to global programs. The assembled participants recommended the formation of a small task force to help UN agencies improve immunization coverage. They dubbed it the Task Force for Child Survival and installed Foege as its first leader.

In this book, Dr. Foege describes the task force from its conception through its landmark success. Over its first six years, as more resources were allocated to the task force, immunization coverage climbed from approximately 15 percent of the world’s children for some vaccines to 80 percent of the world’s children for at least one vaccine. UNICEF head Jim Grant called it the greatest peacetime endeavor the world had ever seen. How did this small, independent, low-profile group leverage change in the largest of global health agencies? Foege dissects each element for clues as to why the task force was able to accomplish so much so quickly, ultimately concluding that coalition-building played a major role and explaining how to strengthen coalitions by scrupulously avoiding the turf guarding and credit seeking that are so common to international endeavors.

Inspiring and accessible, this brief book combines the distilled advice of one of global health's major leaders with the history of an iconic public health program.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421425610
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William H. Foege, MD, MPH, is emeritus presidential distinguished professor of international health at Emory University and an early consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is the author of House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox and The Fears of the Rich, The Needs of the Poor: My Years at the CDC. In 2012, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

William H. Foege is the emeritus presidential distinguished professor of international health at Emory University. He was a director of the Centers for Disease Control, the founding director of the Carter Presidential Center, and a cofounder of the Task Force for Child Survival (now the Task Force for Global Health). He was also an early consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is the author of House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox; The Fears of the Rich, the Needs of the Poor: My Years at the CDC; The Task Force for Child Survival: Secrets of Successful Coalitions; and a coauthor of Change Is Possible: Reflections on the History of Global Health. In 2012, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Table of Contents

Foreword, by President Jimmy Carter
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Plot
Chapter 2. Immunizations in the United States
Chapter 3. Protecting the World’s Children
Chapter 4. How Productive Coalitions Begin
Chapter 5. Bellagio, March 1984
Chapter 6. Organizing a Task Force Secretariat
Chapter 7. Heads of State Give Vaccinations in Colombia
Chapter 8. Bellagio II in Cartagena, October 1985
Chapter 9. After Cartagena
Chapter 10. Bellagio III in Talloires, France, March 1988
Chapter 11. The Harvest of Talloires
Chapter 12. Bangkok’s Message for World Leaders
Chapter 13. The Summit for Children
Chapter 14. After the Summit for Children
Chapter 15. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization
Chapter 16. The Mectizan Miracle
Chapter 17. The Task Force for Global Health
Chapter 18. Lessons
Acknowledgments
Appendix A. The Rockefeller Foundation
Appendix B. World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Bill Gates

"I view Bill as the glue that held the global health community together, getting it to focus on the right priorities, like raising the immunization coverage, and setting the stage for the progress we’ve seen in global health over the last 20 years."

Walter A. Orenstein

"Simply outstanding. I could not put this book down."

From the Publisher

This book tells the story of miracles in global health.
—President Jimmy Carter

I view Bill as the glue that held the global health community together, getting it to focus on the right priorities, like raising the immunization coverage, and setting the stage for the progress we’ve seen in global health over the last 20 years.
—Bill Gates

Simply outstanding. I could not put this book down.
—Walter A. Orenstein, MD, Emory Vaccine Center

President Jimmy Carter

"This book tells the story of miracles in global health."