Valuing Relationships to Strengthen the Future of Global Health
By Emily Mazur
As president and executive director of the Global Health Council (GHC), Loyce Pace has ample experience facilitating connections among the many strategically and ideologically diverse member organizations of GHC. In a conversation with Pace and global health-minded members of the Georgetown community on February 12, 2019, a common theme was the need to foster and balance dynamic relationships in the field, especially in challenging times of political tension.
For GHC, the last two years have been an exercise in political and economic compromise, as the current U.S. administration has proposed significant budget cuts to global health funding for 2019. Pace discussed the delicate balance she and other GHC members struck to preserve access to U.S. governmental funding while still financially uplifting GHC members’ work.
She also detailed not just the challenges of reaching across the aisle to work through conflicts of political ideology, but also how embracing diversity can work to the advantage of health outcomes. She noted the value in drawing new partners to the table, such as the sometimes-controversial involvement of corporations. We need to be prepared to embrace the contributions and potential of new players on the global health stage if we are to adapt, grow, and continue to make progress even amid funding downturns.
She further discussed the need to engage the public to foster global solidarity and break down the divide between “us” as Americans and “the rest of the world.” We especially need to push away misgivings about the “other,” particularly in the context of biosecurity where strategy can quickly devolve towards isolationist and exclusionary attitudes.
Pace’s motivations and inspiration, however, are the people and relationships that initiated her career and sustained her passion for global health in the policy sphere: the communities she served abroad and at home in Los Angeles. Her reflections on her roots in global health field work and education are a poignant reminder that we students of global health who are currently preparing to enter the field need to find and hold fast to those experiences and relationships that make global health a compelling and worthwhile endeavor.
Pace’s career is an example of the positive progress one can generate as a “lobbyist for good” in Washington, D.C., when one’s goals lie with the “people on the ground.” In politically and socially tumultuous times, we have the potential to make global health a rallying cry for global cooperation and solidarity. A challenge for the global health leaders of the future will be to reignite enthusiasm for the cause and to secure the financial and political relationships necessary to turn health goals into reality.
Emily Mazur (COL’21) is an undergraduate in the College, studying biology of global health.
This blog was written by a student in Georgetown’s Conversations in Global Health course, which brings leaders in global health to Georgetown to discuss their careers and work.