GLOBAL HEALTH COUNCIL TO CLOSE OPERATIONS

Board Thanks Leadership, Staff and Members for Unwavering Commitment to Global Health Mission

 With deep regret, the Board of Directors of the Global Health Council (GHC) announces that the Council will close operations within the coming months. This decision about the Council’s future comes after serious deliberations about the state of global health issues, the role of the Council as a convenor and the Council’s current operating model.

GHC, formerly the National Council of International Health, is a U.S.-based, nonprofit membership organization that was created in 1972 to identify priority world health problems and to report on them to the U.S. public, legislators, international and domestic government agencies, academic institutions and the global health community. GHC is the world’s largest membership alliance dedicated to saving lives by improving health throughout the world, and worked to ensure that all who strive for improvement and equity in global health have the information and resources they need to succeed.

The Global Health Council has championed issues of importance to the global health community and can point with pride to significant advances on the five key issues critical to improving health and promoting equity: women’s health; child’s health; HIV and AIDS; infectious diseases and health systems.

For the past four decades, the Council has been the neutral convening place for a diverse community of organizations, all advocating for improvement and equity in global health. The Council’s members have been its strength, working together to form broad-based coalitions to address challenges that affected us– whether advocating for increased U.S. government funding on global health or developing common positions on major health policy issues.

However, times have changed. The compelling needs that gave rise to the Global Health Council’s mission have shifted. Funding that once existed to promote a broad-based health agenda is now focused on specific health issues. The fundamental shifts in the health landscape have led the Board to revisit the relevance of the organization and determine that the Council’s current operating model is no longer sustainable.

We wish to thank our staff, leadership past and present and our members of the international community who have supported the Global Health Council for the last 40 years.

We have accomplished much together, but despite the progress we have made, millions of people, many of them children, remain without access to basic health care. Our commitment to them must not waver. Although The Global Health Council will no longer play the same role, we will continue to fight for the goals that first inspired us to action.

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