By Andrew Seaman
Duke physician, Rwanda HRH Program
Former US President Bill Clinton was joined by Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali this week to celebrate a successful first year of the groundbreaking Rwanda Human Resources for Health (HRH) program, of which Duke University is a founding partner.
The program to train Rwandan medical professionals is supported by the U.S. government, the Global Fund and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), along with Rwandan collaborators.
It is difficult to convey the spectacle of the arrival of someone like former President Clinton. The palpable energy, security, and trailing entourage are something to be experienced. There is no one quite like him in breadth of influence and accomplishment, disarming accessibility and charisma.
It was easy to become lost in the fanfare of Monday’s events. This was especially true as a year-two Duke HRH faculty member with only one week on the ground and much of the work ahead. I knew coming into this position that HRH was something special, something to be watched in the global health arena. You could not design a program more in line with my personal philosophy of global health development. As the dust from the event settles, I realize that all the commotion was well-deserved.
Human Resources for Health is a quintessentially Rwandan program. Ambitious, autonomously inspired and collaboratively devised, it represents much of what the development community has come to love about working with the strong Rwandan leadership. Most importantly, the program’s focus on training health professionals and capacity building is consistent with Clinton’s message. Both he and President Kagame reiterated a shared vision for the country to become free of foreign aid by the year 2020.
I’m hopeful that global health leaders and policymakers continue to see the benefits of this program on development. Rwanda HRH can be a model for human infrastructure development for health and other disciplines, one that Clinton says has some of the lowest administrative overhead he has seen in his lifetime. The bar is set high, to be sure. But, as Mr. Clinton said to a resounding applause, “It’s Rwanda, and I haven’t seen them fail at anything yet.”
