Problems Remain Amid Progress in Developing World, Panelists Say

Many countries in the developing world have made progress in health and other fields in recent decades, but large numbers of people still struggle to survive every day, a panel of experts said Friday at the opening panel of Duke’s “A World Together” conference on global development.

Michael Merson, director of the Duke Global Health Institute, pointed toward health disparities in our “new converging world,” citing chronic disease, climate change and inadequate health systems as key issues. Just as in the United States, tobacco use, obesity and cardiovascular diseases have become major health challenges in the developing world.

“There is no longer any doubt how important health is to development. Security threats and health issues impact development. They are intertwined,” Merson said.

Maya Ajmera, who graduated from Duke with a public policy master’s degree, told the story of how she founded The Global Fund for Children, an organization that gives small grants to community-based organizations working with street kids, child laborers, orphans and other young people.

She said her effort seeks to use relatively small amounts of capital to help grassroots organizations grow and become sustainable. “There are about 250 million children who are invisible,” Ajmera said. “Community-based NGOs can reach them. So we gave them money to reach even more children and stood by them for three to 10 years.”

The Global Fund for Children now supports hundreds of non-governmental organizations in more 70 countries, developing social entrepreneurs—some of whom were street children themselves—to help their own communities. Much of the work focuses on girls.

“If you educate a girl, you educate her village,” Ajmera said, adding that she is also seeing a growing problem of young men who are unemployed and languishing in urban areas. 

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