Sharing stories to improve accountability in global health and development

Abraar Karan
Abraar Karan, MPH ’17

Ethically questionable practices by global health and development organizations—such as creating a false impression of success on days that donors visit—are not being captured by traditional accountability measures, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health student Abraar Karan, MPH ’17. In an editorial published in STAT on October 26, 2016, he wrote that with monitors like Charity Navigator focused primarily on fiscal responsibility, there is little attention paid to organizations’ daily operations.

To help bridge that gap, Karan is calling for people working in the field to submit stories to his new website The Global Health Watch about troubling practices that they have observed, from the inefficient to the outright corrupt. He and other Harvard Chan School students launched the site as a vehicle for sparking dialogue and gathering evidence that may ultimately be actionable.

“While one story is an opinion, several can provide a more accurate picture of reality,” Karan wrote in STAT.

Read STAT editorial: Students can prevent global health groups from fabricating success stories

Photo: Courtesy of Abraar Karan