Greetings from Africa. I am participating in the 2019 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting at the United Nations Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Grand Challenges is a family of global initiatives supported by various funders around the world to address critical problems of health and development. Here, I took part in a panel discussion on October 28 during the meeting’s opening plenary session. The panel included (from left to right) Haitham El-noush, senior adviser, Innovation in Health and Development, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Oslo; Matshidiso Moeti, director, World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville, Congo; Felix Dakora, president, African Academy of Sciences (AAS), Nairobi, Kenya; Francis Collins; Jennifer Blanke, vice president, Agriculture, Human and Social Development, African Development Bank Group, Abidjan, Ivory Coast; and Tom Kariuki, AAS’s director of programs. Among the topics raised during this stimulating conversation were the need for cooperation among the world’s scientific and political leaders and current efforts to prioritize African initiatives that will most immediately benefit human health. Credit: AAS
