Health Plus: Spillovers from Foreign Aid for Health in Africa

About the Topic: Foreign aid for health in low- and middle-income countries has increased five-fold over the past 25 years. Between 2005 and 2010, health aid made up more than 30% of all health spending in low-income countries.  Global health is also an increasingly important component of U.S. foreign aid, rising steadily from under 4% of all U.S. non-military aid in 1990 to 22.7% in 2011. There is growing evidence for the role of health aid in improving health among recipient countries, but is that it? In this talk I will address the arguments for and against health as a focus of aid efforts and present initial evidence on the role of health aid on human capital and economic development.

About the Speaker: Eran Bendavid is an infectious diseases physician and an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Medical Disciplines and a Stanford Health Policy affiliate. His research interests involve understanding the relationship between policies and health outcomes in developing countries. He explores how decisions about foreign assistance for health are made, and how those decisions affect the health of those whom assistance aims to serve.

He received a B.A. in chemistry and philosophy from Dartmouth College, and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in infectious diseases at Stanford.