HEALTH & SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT – A journey of a lifetime

Health and Sustainable Development - A Journey of a lifetime gives the readers a personal account of the global efforts over four decades to secure basic health care and preventative services to all people in the world irrespective of where the live. What will be apparent to the reader is the fact that the unprecedented improvements in health we have seen over the years are based on several well-defined policies, goals and strategies and committed individuals and organizations all over the world who wanted to reach the goals and make a difference in the lives of the people they serve.

The book includes three first-hand experiences of working with health and sustainable development in Swaziland, Zambia, and Tanzania from 1976 to 2012. In individual chapters on milestones in health and sustainable development, the reader will get an account of the knowledge, policies, goals, and strategies that were underpinning international health and sustainable development work at the time in question. Each of the country chapters is structured to give a historical perspective on the country in question followed by a description of my work in the country and the challenges faced at the time. At the end of each country chapter, the reader will get an account of the results of the work in each country.

The country chapters are followed by chapters on the author's international working experience in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the World Health Organization, and the GAVI Alliance. They address the development assistance modalities pursued over time by bilateral and multilateral development agencies and the important collaboration across agencies. There are no blueprints to development assistance, but there are important lessons learned, which can optimize the combined efforts in development assistance. In the last chapter, the author summarize the lessons learned and provide a framework for improving the results of our investments in health and sustainable development in the future.