If Bill Clinton leaves the board of a charity called the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI)—which he has promised to do if Hillary Clinton becomes president—it could have negative consequences for global health, according to experts in the field. CHAI, a spinoff of the Clinton Foundation, has played a key role in lowering drug prices in developing countries and helping governments in African and Asia build health care delivery systems.
Without the former president’s clout, CHAI’s hard-won gains could be reversed, some say. If CHAI had to end or cut back its operations, “I don’t know who picks up the slack,” said Ashish Jha, K.T. Li Professor of International Health and director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, in an August 31, 2016 STAT article. No other organization “brings the kind of trust that the Clinton name brings to a lot of countries (and) a lot of national leaders,” he said.
He added, “We as a global health community are going to have to figure out who is going to take it on in the future.”
Read the STAT article: Can Clinton global health charity survive loss of former president’s clout?