Global Health & Development (GH&D)

Through examining structures, policies, strategies, and managerial approaches of both public and private global actors (WHO, World Bank, Foundations such ad Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or the Global Fund, and Non-Governmental Organisations), the GH&D specialization prepares students to become active actors in the achievement of equity in health for people worldwide. This Specialization provides students with an overview of challenges in the changing global scene in health-related policy making and management at the global level. It allows students to understand the key issues of health care systems, policies and management in low-income and emerging countries, and to develop most relevant skills to engage with international institutions and transnational non-state actors (including public-private partnerships, global philanthropies, corporations and non-governmental organizations).

If the students choose this specialization, they are likely to pursue a career in international organizations and institutions (e.g. the WHO), International NGOs, Global partnerships and other organisations involved in GH&D issues.

The GH&D specialization includes the following courses:

•  Global Strategies and Governance for Health: introduces students to global health-related issues, examines the structure, policies, and strategies of both public and private (profit and non-profit) global actors, and their roles in determining changes in health systems and people’s access to health services, and gives you an overview of the challenges any global health manager has to face
• Health Management and Policies in Low Income Countries and Emerging Economies: provides the students with an overview of the patterns and key issues of health systems and policies in low-income countries and emerging economies, with an emphasis on critical assessment of current and future policy options and issues and on assessing alternative methods of raising revenue to funding health care in low-income countries and emerging economies
• Managing Global Health Challenges: presents to the students and analyses a number of challenging global health issues from a technical and managerial point of view, based mainly on external experts’ and/or faculty members’ direct experience. Topics include: global food system, challenges of infectious diseases, role of civil society in shaping global health policy-making, global challenge of antibiotic resistance, environment and health, international humanitarian missions, mother and child health, health care services and initiatives for migrants’ health, managing health in conflicts
• International Programme Design, Management, and Evaluation: introduces the students to project cycle management to enable them to prepare logical frameworks and result frameworks, to identify and formulate projects through a participatory approach, to define project documents and to assess their quality. The course includes also a general introduction to development cooperation and a critical analysis of development cooperation instruments
• Evidence-Based Health Policy Evaluation: critically evaluates the impact of different policy frameworks on variables such as individual health and wealth and provides the students with the main tools for the ex-post evaluation of policy interventions, discussing the basic concepts of policy evaluation by analysing case studies from the real world, with a focus on low income countries
• Management Issues in International Organisations: discusses managerial hard and soft skills, including team working, presentations and public speaking, data concepts and analysis, problem solving, capacity building, project management and risk management, in international organisations, using different case-studies.