May 2018 Newsletter - Global Washington

Welcome to the May 2018 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.

IN THIS ISSUE

Letter from our Executive Director
Issue Brief: How Technology & Innovation are Accelerating Progress in Global Health
Organization Profile: VillageReach
Changemaker: Elaine Gibbons, PATH Vice President of Global Engagement and Communications
Welcome New Members
GlobalWA Member Events
Career Center
GlobalWA Events

Letter from our Executive Director

Kristen Dailey

From the very first mile to the last, health is a critical component of global development. And when it comes to advancing global health, our Global Washington members have made incredible strides by combining the best of new technology with the relationships and trust built up within the communities they serve.

In this month’s newsletter, prepare to be inspired by VillageReach, whose work begins at the last mile, where health interventions are both the hardest to deliver and the most needed. I also hope you enjoy reading about the career twists and turns taken by PATH’s newest vice president of global engagement and communications, Elaine Gibbons.

Washington state is both an innovative and a practical place. It is here that we make cutting-edge breakthroughs, explore applications for those insights, and then forge ahead to find out what works for people in low-resource, low-infrastructure settings.

Last month, Global Washington co-hosted the United Nations Chief Information and Technology Officer, Atefeh Riazi, along with Tableau and Seattle Pacific University. Ms. Riazi noted that she felt inspired by so many innovative non-profit and for-profit organizations in our region that are using the best technology and information available to tackle the Sustainable Development Goals. This may be no surprise to us, but it does demonstrate the growing recognition of our state as a hub for global development and innovation.

Together, we’re making the world a healthier, more equitable, and prosperous place.

KristenSignature

Kristen Dailey
Executive Director

Issue Brief

How Technology & Innovation are Accelerating Progress in Global Health

By Andie Long

In April, the United Nations Chief Information and Technology Officer, Atefeh Riazi, visited Seattle, where she met with numerous companies and non-profits, including many Global Washington members. The purpose of her meetings was to explore how the UN can support globally-minded organizations in using information, technology, and innovation to accelerate progress toward the 17 Sustainable Development Goals – also known as The Global Goals.

Just prior to Ms. Riazi’s visit, the UN had announced the adoption of Tableau Software globally, an effort intended to visualize trends in the data and improve the way Member States use data to inform decision-making. Despite some gaps in the data, the global development community is forging ahead and doing everything in its power to move the needle.

Ms. Riazi has said she believes the for-profit sector has an important role to play, alongside the non-profit sector, which already has been expanding and deepening its use of new technologies and innovative solutions.

Without a doubt, the challenges are immense, and UN Member Countries have set ambitious targets to reach by 2030. In this issue, we’ll take a closer look at the global health goal.

In a 2017 assessment, the UN noted that major progress had been made on Sustainable Development Goal 3 (“Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”). Yet, in order to meet its own aggressive targets, several key areas would require special attention. Chief among them were reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health; infectious diseases; and a focus on health systems strengthening.

REPRODUCTIVE, MATERNAL, NEWBORN, AND CHILD HEALTH

When it comes to preventing unintended pregnancies, universal access to sexual and reproductive health care is critical. In 2017, the UN reported that 78 percent of women of reproductive age worldwide who were “married or in union” felt that their family planning needs were satisfied through modern contraceptives. This represents an increase of three percentage points since 2000. Remarkably, in the least developed countries, there has been an 18 percentage point increase over the last seven years.

The Gates Foundation has said it is dedicated to reaching an additional 120 million women and girls in the poorest countries by 2020 with high-quality contraceptive information, services, and supplies. Its long-term goal is for every woman to have access to voluntary family planning.

Read Global Washington’s conversation with PATH Director of Reproductive Health, Martha Brady.

One product that reproductive health experts are particularly excited about is a novel injectable contraceptive that was developed by PATH and manufactured by Pfizer. Referred to as subcutaneous DMPA, or Sayana® Press, the long-lasting contraceptive is injected every three months. The product itself combines the drug and a needle in a prefilled, single-use Uniject™ device – another PATH invention. Because of its user-friendly design, it can be administered by trained community health workers, pharmacists, and women themselves through self-injection.

Moving from reproductive health to the health of infants and young children, it’s worth celebrating the fact that the mortality rate for kids under five years old has fallen 44 percent since the year 2000. However, in sub-Saharan Africa the rate remains stubbornly high.

World Vision has spent the last decade equipping community health workers with cell phones and other technology tools to help them reach more people and improve the quality of care they can provide to pregnant women and caregivers. World Vision currently has mHealth initiatives in 11 countries in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, and the organization is increasingly utilizing new types of information and technology solutions, including customized vehicles to ensure vaccine cold chain in South Africa, and iris-scan technology to monitor Ebola vaccine trial participants in Sierra Leone.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES

When it comes to infectious diseases overall, one of the major risk factors is the lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Today there are many more effective and affordable water filtration and purification options available.

PotaVida, for example, provides a simple-to-use solar water purifier for households in disaster relief and refugee contexts. What’s more, the product records its own usage, sending those data in real-time to field staff so they can track whether families are using the devices correctly and how often. Other products on the market have been designed for community use in post-disaster settings.

In a recent TEDxSeattle talk, PATH CEO and President Steve Davis heralded an exciting time in global health. Today, he said, we have new ways to fight old diseases, “giving us the power to banish some of the worst killers from the earth.”

Not only is the global health community making extraordinary gains toward eliminating diseases like malaria, but it is also increasingly partnering with the private sector to make rapid data-informed decisions that can save lives.

Read how the Global Washington community is working to eliminate malaria.

The partnership between Microsoft and Medical Teams International offers a great example. Thanks to digital data capture and real-time monitoring efforts in the field, Medical Teams International was able to halt an emerging cholera outbreak in refugee settlements in Uganda.

In addition to the known killers, new diseases such as SARS, Ebola, and Zika have also emerged at a frightening rate. The Ebola outbreak in particular helped catalyze a new vaccine development collaboration called CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, as well as the governments of Germany, Japan, and Norway, the coalition is focused on vaccines for the next pandemic disease.

HEALTH SYSTEMS AND FUNDING

One of the most challenging targets to meet within SDG 3 is strengthening the capacity of health systems in developing countries, and around the world, to provide early warning, risk reduction, and management of health risks at the national and global level. According to the UN’s own progress assessment, in the least developed countries, for every 1,000 people there are fewer than three nurses or midwives and just a fraction of one physician. This shortage of medically trained staff puts greater pressure on health systems across the board.

Americares is a great example of a health-focused relief and development organization that’s not just responding to people’s medical needs in an emergency, but also evaluating ways to help strengthen and build capacity in local health systems for the future. Expert at moving large amounts of medicines and medical supplies on short notice, the organization has created an app for its partners called the Field Inventory Tracker, or Fit Tool.

On a larger scale, VillageReach’s OpenLMIS (logistics management information system) supports health commodity supply chain managers in low-infrastructure settings. Starting first in Mozambique, OpenLMIS is now in use in eight countries.

Shifting from tracking medical supplies to tracking patient care, another tech solution that was developed by Global Washington member Max Foundation monitors the needs of cancer patients in low-resource settings. The Patient Access Tracking System, or PATS®, is used by healthcare professionals who access cancer treatment through the foundation. The platform is currently used to monitor and maintain treatment access for more than 35,000 patients in more than 70 countries.

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Learn more about how Global Washington members are using technology and innovation to improve global health outcomes:

American Cancer Society. Fighting cancer in lower-resourced nations has its challenges, but the American Cancer Society (ACS) is working globally to bridge the gap so that all people share the victories of the war on cancer. To focus on the treatment gap, more than 40 oncologists from 12 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa recently came together to establish the African Cancer Coalition. This group aims to scale up high-quality cancer treatments for patients. The ACS, Clinton Health Access Initiative, National Comprehensive Cancer Network® and the IBM Health Corps are partnering with the African Cancer Coalition to make this vision a reality. Together they want to ensure that every cancer patient is given the chance to survive and thrive. cancer.org

Americares saves lives and improves health for people affected by poverty or disaster so they can reach their full potential. Americares responds to an average of 30 disasters each year, shipping medicine and medical supplies and restoring health services to maintain access to health care for survivors. Americares leverages technology, including an app called the ‘Fit Tool’ developed to manage and track large shipments of medicine and supplies in the field and share that information with partners in real time. By collaborating with partner organizations and by using technology that helps improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its health programs, Americares is able to reach vulnerable families with critical health programs, medicine and supplies. americares.org

The Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) is the world’s largest independent, non-profit research institute devoted exclusively to infectious diseases. Established 42 years ago, before Seattle became known for global health innovation, CIDR began addressing those diseases that disproportionally affect people in poverty. The organization applies cutting-edge scientific approaches to generating breakthroughs in the fight against TB, malaria, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases and, as result, broadens understanding of human health. cidresearch.org

Global Good combines Intellectual Venture’s unique invention prowess with the expertise of leading humanitarian organizations, forward-looking governments, and commercial partners. The organization invents, develops, and deploys commercially-viable technologies that improve life in developing countries. In the fight against malaria, Global Good has created an improved rapid diagnostic test to detect low levels of malaria parasites in a person’s bloodstream. It has also developed an automated microscope to help untrained individuals accurately diagnose malaria. intellectualventures.com/globalgood

The Max Foundation works to increase global access to treatment, care, and support for people living with cancer. The foundation’s efforts are made possible through a proprietary, real-time, client relationship management tool – the Patient Access Tracking System (PATS®). Developed in-house, the PATS® platform empowers Max Foundation’s partner physicians, program managers, and program coordinators to seamlessly align their efforts at the individual patient level – ensuring the right drug is delivered to the right patient in the right dose at the right time. In total, the PATS® platform helps monitor and maintain treatment access for more than 35,000 patients spread across 70+ countries. themaxfoundation.org

Medical Teams International. The world is facing a refugee crisis on a scale it has never known. Crowded conditions, poor sanitation, and inaccessible healthcare in refugee camps can quickly escalate into disease outbreaks and staggering levels of suffering. Through an innovative partnership with Cambia Health Solutions and Microsoft, Medical Teams International has developed a mobile app to replace slow, cumbersome paperwork processes and track real-time medical data. Now, healthcare workers at refugee settlements in Uganda are empowered to monitor and stop disease outbreaks before they reach epidemic levels. medicalteams.org

MSR Global Health is a leading innovator and manufacturer of low-cost, field-proven products that improve access to basic human needs for people around the globe. With nearly 50 years of technical engineering and manufacturing expertise, MSR Global Health is developing technologies that increase access to vital needs such as clean water. SDG 3 recognizes that a major risk factor for infectious diseases and mortality is the lack of safe water – with MSR Global Health technologies, water-related diseases can be prevented and treated. msrglobalhealth.com

NetHope. For more than a decade, NetHope has collaborated with its nonprofit members and innovative technology partners to meet the demands of vulnerable communities around the world. This cross-sector collaboration allows for better programs, mitigation of risks, and scaling benefits for greater impact in the communities in which NetHope works. By delivering information technology solutions to the developing world, NetHope helps nonprofits become more effective to achieve great strides for the underserved, and provides tech companies the opportunity to leverage their tools and ideas at scale across the entire sector of development to create successful outcomes, promoting the health and wellbeing for at-risk communities. nethope.org

PATH uses technology and innovation to open the door to healthy lives and well-being for people everywhere. A global team with expertise in science, business, advocacy and dozens of other disciplines, PATH drives responsive solutions to a wide spectrum of health challenges: developing contraceptives that fit women’s lives; advancing digital tools that empower front-line malaria fighters with real-time data; pioneering new models for HIV prevention and care; advancing vaccines that protect children from diseases; and much more. By partnering with businesses, governments, and communities, PATH takes high-quality, affordable health solutions all the way to scale—because when people everywhere have a path to good health, communities, countries, and economies thrive. path.org

PotaVida enables aid organizations to make better decisions by collecting accurate data from the field in real time and distilling it into actionable insights. To realize this, PotaVida creates technical solutions that work, are simple to use, and result in dramatic benefit to people in need. The company’s first product, the Smart Solar Purifier, disinfects water using just sunlight for household use in disaster relief and refugee contexts. In addition to providing safe drinking water at a dramatically lower cost, every Smart Solar Purifier records its own usage data. This data is downloaded to mobile devices to provide instantaneous feedback in the field, and is also synced in the cloud, analyzed at the program level, and sent to decision makers. potavida.com

Splash is a non-profit organization that delivers water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) solutions for kids. They work in Asia and Africa in some of the fastest growing cities in the world, where they focus on child-serving institutions to help kids and their families lead healthier lives. Splash has completed over 1,600 projects across eight countries, serving more than 400,000 children. Their five-year goal is to reach 100% of government schools in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Kathmandu (Nepal), and Kolkata (India), benefitting one million children. To track their impact, Splash works with corporate partners like Tableau to visualize and share its data. splash.org.

The Tableau Foundation is an initiative led by the employees of Tableau Software (NYSE: DATA) that encourages the use of facts and analytical reasoning to solve the world’s problems. Tableau Foundation grants combine Tableau’s two most valuable resources – its people and its products – with financial support to nonprofits that are using data to reshape communities around the globe. Since 2015, Tableau Foundation and PATH have partnered to provide vital software, training, and funding in support of Zambia’s goal of eliminating malaria by 2021. The partnership empowers frontline health workers with the critical tools to track and treat malaria cases to help eliminate this deadly disease. tableau.com

VillageReach works with ministries of health to solve health care delivery challenges in low resource communities. We are building on a rich history of leapfrogging technologies that can overcome both geographic and social distance. Electronic data capture helps us ensure the right health products are available at the right time and place. UAVs are being tested to address availability of blood in emergencies and access to routine health products. Mobile phones are allowing adolescents to anonymously call a health hotline. These technologies are helping VillageReach create a more responsive health system that can better manage current and emerging health threats. villagereach.org

World Vision. Mobile technology is ubiquitous: there are more than 5 billion wireless subscribers globally with greater than 70% in low and middle income countries. World Vision is leveraging “mHealth,” or mobile health, applications among thousands of community health workers to improve people’s health, especially in countries where access to healthcare is severely limited. World Vision’s health, nutrition, water and sanitation, and disaster management experts are all using digital technology to help ensure life in all its fullness for children in the communities with which it works. You can view the 2018 World Vision mHealth Report and learn more about World Vision mHealth Programming at wvi.org/mHealth.

Organization Profile

VillageReach

By Joanne Lu

In Mozambique, VillageReach uses technology to help ensure refrigerators are keeping vaccines at the right temperature. Photo: Paul Joseph Brown for VillageReach. 2016. Mozambique.

VillageReach is on a mission to solve complex health-care delivery challenges in low- and middle-income countries. They’re all about the “last mile” – not just reaching it, but starting there.

The phrase “last mile” might be more familiar to some in the context of telecommunications, in which it describes the final leg that networks have to span to get their services to end-users.

“That final segment…is the most critical, but also the most challenging and expensive piece of the value chain,” VillageReach President Emily Bancroft explained. “But if the systems don’t work for people at the last mile, they have limited value.”

The telecom reference not incidental – the organization was founded by Cameroonian-American telecom executive Blaise Judja-Sato. What is incidental, though, is the encounter that inspired him to start an organization dedicated to tackling the challenges of delivering healthcare to the people who need it the most.

In 1999, Judja-Sato found himself on a plane with Graça Machel, a respected humanitarian and activist for women and children’s rights and health, as well as widow of both the former President of Mozambique Samora Machel and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela. Mrs. Machel was newly married to Mandela at the time.

When Judja-Sato struck up a conversation with Mrs. Machel on the plane, she urged him to visit Mozambique. She asked him to see for himself the challenges the people were facing. At the time, Mozambique was still emerging from a 15-year civil war. It had also just been hit with a devastating flood. Aid and resources were pouring in, but because of the mere physical dimensions of the country, communities in the north part of the country were completely cut off.

According to Bancroft, Mozambique is roughly the size and shape of Oregon, California and Washington combined. The capital, Maputo, is down south by San Diego comparatively. Aid response to the flood was being sent to Maputo, but without sufficient infrastructure, it was nearly impossible to deliver any of it to the people up north who needed it the most.

Judja-Sato was so impacted by what he witnessed in Mozambique that upon his return, he formed a group of advisors (including PATH Senior Advisor Emeritus Michael Free) to research and discuss what could be done. They noted, too, that even though a lot of new technology was emerging in the sector, there still wasn’t an effective system for making sure those solutions and other life-saving resources actually reached the last mile.

In 2000, Judja-Sato, along with Craig Nakagawa, Lionel Pierre, and Didier Lavril, launched VillageReach. They began with supply-chain interventions in Mozambique to deliver child health vaccines, because Mrs. Machel was already very engaged with that issue.

Since its founding, VillageReach has worked in 13 sub-Saharan African countries and Pakistan, but its three “core countries” are Mozambique, Malawi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The core countries are those in which VillageReach has long-term commitments, with people on the ground and a deeper knowledge of the context. It’s in those three countries that they test innovations, before identifying partners that can scale the solutions in other countries and VillageReach can eventually hand it off to others entirely.

“The ideas we’re coming up with and the ideas we’re helping test – they’re not bleeding edge innovations,” Bancroft said. “[It’s] usually an approach that’s been tried in another environment that hasn’t been tried in the last mile. Or it’s a trend that we’re seeing globally but, again, it hasn’t actually fully been tested, implemented and proven that it can have value for people in low-resource communities.”

According to Bancroft, VillageReach sits between the “true innovators” and large-scale partners that work with multiple governments – like UNICEF, for example, which is currently managing a VillageReach solution to improve child vaccination supply chains in Pakistan.

So what makes a good “last mile” solution? Over the years, VillageReach has learned that it’s about more than just delivering products. It’s also about addressing systemic barriers that limit how well products are used. In fact, the three main challenges they’re working to address are related to people, data, and products. That means comprehensive interventions may include supporting health workers, enabling collection and use of data, or even ensuring that clinics have sustainable sources of energy so that delivered vaccines don’t go bad.

For VillageReach, it’s always been critical to figure out how technology works best in low-infrastructure settings. But Bancroft says that often the question is, “What does technology really mean, and how do you work with what you have?”

For example, VillageReach set up a mobile-based health hotline in Malawi in 2011. It’s essentially a toll-free number that connects callers to trained health-care providers. The technology employed is relatively simple, but as VillageReach and the government prepare to scale up or even replicate the program in other countries, they’re now looking into more advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI), to help defray government costs.

Trained hotline nurses provide free health and nutrition information to people in communities throughout Malawi. Photo: Paul Joseph Brown. 2016. Balaka, Malawi.

Drawing on the success of Logitistimo in India, VillageReach is also in the planning stages of a ride-sharing platform for transporting lab samples. They’re calling it “Sample Taxi.” Bancroft says it’s not that there isn’t transportation where they work. Rather, the transportation isn’t always well-managed and organized. In fact, she says there are already many trucks that travel between health facilities; they just don’t communicate or cooperate. With Sample Taxi, VillageReach hopes to not only make the transportation that exists between health facilities more efficient, but to also include the private sector.

One technology-based intervention that has been particularly successful is the OpenLMIS (logistics management information system) initiative, which allows supply chain managers in low-infrastructure settings to manage all their health commodities electronically. What began as VillageReach’s early work in Mozambique, designing supply chain technology, has now been scaled in eight countries with more than 20 collaborating partners, including PATH and USAID.

But Bancroft noted that whether it’s about implementing technology or developing interventions, for VillageReach, the most important thing is that the system is easiest and best for the end-user. She says that’s why VillageReach changed its tagline six years ago from “going the last mile” to “starting at the last mile.”

In the case of tech-based solutions, that often means putting a greater emphasis on streamlining, so that health workers aren’t juggling different devices for every tool. It also means doing more to protect the privacy of those from whom data is being collected, especially as governments continue to adopt more digital services.

But 10 years from now, Bancroft says she hopes VillageReach has created enough of an evidence base, inspired improvements, and catalyzed others so that the three main issues they’re currently focused on –people, data, and products– are being taken care of by the governments themselves and their partners.

“Then, VillageReach can move on to the next layer of challenges,” Bancroft said.

Changemaker

Elaine Gibbons, PATH Vice President of Global Engagement and Communications

By Joanne Lu

Photo provided by PATH.

Earlier this year, global-health giant PATH named Elaine Gibbons vice president of global engagement and communications. Even as a student, Gibbons wanted to make a global impact. But to arrive at her current position, she’s taken an unexpected and circuitous journey across continents and into the world of business – a journey that’s equipped her with skills she now leverages to build partnerships that span sectors and industries and maximize impact.

Gibbons was born in the UK to parents who were both strongly committed to social justice issues. At the age of five, she got her first taste of life outside the West, when her family moved to India for a year. Her father was a scientist with the UN.

“I suppose that really shaped my experience of the world,” she said. “This was when India was a closed economy and a really different place to be than southern England in 1975.”

After finishing her first year of schooling in India, Gibbons and her family moved back to the UK, where she eventually studied English history and politics in university. Her plan was to do VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas). But when VSO suggested she get some experience first, she moved to Japan to teach for a year. There, she met an American, and her life was suddenly propelled in a different direction: she got married and moved to Seattle.

In Seattle, Gibbons embarked on a 13-year career with Russell Investments.

“I think if you had said to me when I was at college, ‘You’ll work for a large asset-management organization – a big investment company,’ I would have said that was nonsense.”

But reflecting on her time at Russell, she says the opportunities she got there were invaluable in teaching her about business, leading teams, and doing “transformational work.”

“That really kept me interested and invigorated, even though it wasn’t the area that I had originally anticipated I’d be in,” she said.

But even at Russell, she was drawn to global work, and eventually moved to Bangalore for two years to run the company’s India operations. (Interestingly, her son spent his first year of school there, just as she did.) But by 2012, Gibbons was ready for change.

“I concluded that I needed to continue to do global work in a complicated environment that had a lot of change management and evolution,” she says. “I wanted something that was mission-driven.”

She took a year off work, and during that time, prominent members of both the for-profit and non-profit communities suggested that she look into PATH. The global-health giant, they said, would fulfill everything she was looking for in a position.

At the same time, PATH was looking for someone with a business background to help transform their transactional and technical engagements with the corporate sector into more “strategic and market-shaping” partnerships, as Gibbons explained it.

In 2013, Gibbons joined PATH as the executive director of global corporate engagement. Her goal was to create a platform that would broker strategic relationships, primarily across the life science and technology sectors.

“The sustainable development goals can’t be met without active and sustained engagement from the private sector,” Gibbons said. “[That recognition] is driving a lot of the multi-sector partnership work that is happening across the development space – a recognition that governments alone can’t do it; NGOs and the social sector alone can’t do it [either]. We need the engagement of the private sector, but we need the private sector to engage deeply.”

She says it’s not just about corporate philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, or the exchange of technical expertise – all are important, but they’re even better in combination.

“I think what we recognized is that we had all the technical touchpoints, but we hadn’t brought them together around a strategic intent, and that strategic intent was to provide greater impact through more effective multi-sector partnerships.”

For example, the Visualize No Malaria initiative brought together PATH’s global health expertise, Zambia’s Ministry of Health, and eight tech companies – Tableau, Alteryx, DataBlick, DigitalGlobe, Exasol, Mapbox, Slalom, and Twilio – to create data-based solutions that help health workers deploy tools and medicine more rapidly and effectively. The program has been such a success that they are now looking to expand beyond Zambia into other countries committed to elimination.

Gibbons noted that ultimately, these types of partnerships are most impactful at the country-level, where building capacity in such a way leads to sustainable development across all sectors involved.

And according to Gibbons, PATH’s dedication to technology innovation is crucial for achieving that kind of impact. Not only does technology keep PATH on the leading edge of vaccines and product development, but improving business technologies and other shared services at the Seattle office also allows the organization to be stronger for its in-country partners. She especially sees this in her new role overseeing her former department of strategic private sector work as well as marketing and communications, philanthropic development and advocacy and public policy.

Over the next decade, Gibbons is excited to see PATH continue to leverage technology to remain a leader in global health and service innovations and to do so in a way that builds capacity and partnerships at the country-level.

As for herself, perhaps the in-country multi-sector partnerships she’s helped build will be so strong that she’ll be enjoying a cocktail on a beach with Global Washington’s Kristen Dailey and other leading ladies of the industry, she suggested with a laugh. Otherwise, she’s just going to continue dedicating herself to work that has a sustainable impact on broad systems.

Welcome New Members

Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!

CARE

Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package®, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside women and girls because, equipped with the proper resources, they have the power to lift whole families and entire communities out of poverty. That’s why women and girls are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve education and health, create economic opportunity, respond to emergencies and confront hunger. Last year CARE worked in 93 countries and reached 63 million people around the world. Learn more at care.org.