Mæstad in expert committee on Norway’s efforts for global health

A new expert committee has been tasked to give advice on Norway’s efforts for global health. CMI’s Ottar Mæstad is among the members who will provide important input as to how Norway best can contribute to advance global health in the years ahead.

Norway has played a leading role in the international efforts to tackle global health challenges for more than 25 years. In an effort to make sure that Norway continues to play a key role, seven aid organisations and think tanks - Red Cross, the Norwegian Church Aid, Save the Children, UNICEF Norway, Civita, Tankesmien Agenda, and Langsikt – have initiated a new expert committee to provide input to Norway’s strategic priorities in the field for the years to come.

Development Learning Lab director and research professor at CMI, Ottar Mæstad is one of eleven members in the newly appointed expert committee.

-Major improvements have taken place in global health over the past decades, but important challenges remain. It is timely to take stock and rethink future priorities, he says.

The expert committee's mandate is to describe the biggest challenges and opportunities in global health up to 2050, and how Norway can best contribute internationally, both financially and politically. They must take into account both global development and Norway's own interests. As part of the assignment, the committee must assess what Norway is best equipped to contribute with. The committee members will submit their report at the end of October 2024.

 The committee is led by Camilla Stoltenberg, CEO of NORCE.

- Global health is about solidarity and aid, but increasingly also about Norwegian security and self-interest. The pandemic was clear proof of this, and it must be reflected in how Norway invests in global health going forward, she says in a press release from the committee’s secretariat.

The committee members are:

• Camilla Stoltenberg, CEO of the research institute NORCE
• Bent Høie, state administrator in Rogaland
• John-Arne Røttingen, CEO of the Wellcome Trust
• Karoline M. Linde, CEO of Laerdal Global Health
• Ole Frithjof Norheim, professor at the Department of Global Health and Community Medicine at UiB, and head of BCEPS
• Anne-Marie Helland, Director of International Development at PwC
• Lumbwe Chola, associate professor at the department of health management and health economics at UiO
• Usman A. Mushtaq, doctor and former health councilor in Oslo
• Amanda Hylland Spjældnes, medical student and head of Norwegian People's Aid Solidarity Youth
• Ottar Mæstad, director of the Development Learning Lab (DLL) at CMI
• Trygve Ottersen, acting assistant director in the Directorate for Medical Products (DMP) and associate professor at the Department of Community Medicine and Global Health at UiO