‘In pandemics… it’s disruptions to essential health services which can ultimately kill more people than the outbreak itself’

In this episode of Philanthropod, host Anubha Rawat speaks with CHIC CEO, Dr. Madeleine Ballard, a Rhodes Scholar and evaluation scientist. Dr. Ballard helped launch Liberia's first national professional Community Health Workers (CHWs) program and now leads the Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC)’s mission to turn evidence-based community health into global policy.

CHIC is a global coalition professionalising CHWs at scale. What began between six community health organisations has evolved into a movement activating governments, NGOs and implementers to ensure CHWs are salaried, skilled, supervised and integrated into national health systems.

Anubha and Madeleine discuss the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration that centered CHWs as the key to universal healthcare. While that vision was sidelined by the sovereign debt crisis and shifting international priorities, CHIC addresses a critical oversight: the original model relied on unsupported volunteers. CHWs were not paid, nor did they have supplies, supervision or training to properly benefit the system. By identifying specific barriers holding governments back, such as lack of start-up capital and the absence of global delivery guidelines, CHIC has stepped in to be the unified professional voice and evidence base needed to transform community health into a formal, national priority.

Today, CHIC’s pro-CHW policy dashboard tracks accreditation and pay across over 100 countries. Dr. Ballard views this “scoreboard” as a catalyst to double the number of nations adopting professional policies. While the concept of a CHW isn’t new, CHIC is securing the financial and delivery frameworks necessary to empower the“backbone” of primary healthcare to reach its full potential.

This episode is recommended listening for anyone interested in global health equity and how to move evidence-based ideas into national policy.

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For many of us, transport is a background detail: a car in the driveway or a bus at the corner. But for millions in the Majority World, the distance between home and a healthcare appointment or a child’s school is prohibitive. Without safe and affordable transport, access to essential services can become impossible.

In this episode of Philanthropod, host Anubha Rawat sits down with Diana Mason, Managing Director Australia at World Bicycle Relief. Born out of the 2004 tsunami response in Asia, World Bicycle Relief has evolved from a bicycle distributor into a pioneer in rural mobility for low-income communities. For the past 22 years, World Bicycle Relief has proven how a reliable and cost-effective bicycle can unlock significant opportunities for economic empowerment, education and healthcare in communities globally.

Together, Diana and Anubha track the evolution of World Bicycle Relief’s development model. They dive into the initial challenges of operating in environments where standard bicycles often lack the durability for rugged terrain, quickly becoming “bicycle-shaped objects” without spare parts or trained mechanics. In response, the team at World Bicycle Relief created the Buffalo Bicycle: a strong, purpose-built tool supported by an ecosystem of trained mechanics and access to high quality spare parts, designed to last a lifetime. With one million bicycles distributed across seven countries, World Bicycle Relief has moved beyond simple delivery to integrating mobility into school transport and healthcare systems at scale.

Ultimately, this conversation reminds us that with mobility comes possibility, and that by providing a robust tool and a supporting ecosystem, more people will have the freedom and autonomy to plan their own future.

Learn more about World Bicycle Relief here: worldbicyclerelief.org/

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2025 marked real pressure across the global aid landscape, and the effects continue to emerge. Funding cuts. Programs paused or closed. Organisations asking hard questions about how to keep essential services running. But alongside that disruption, something else is emerging: a genuine sense of possibility.

In this conversation, host Anubha Rawat sits down with Neil Buddy Shah, CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), to take stock of where global health has landed after a difficult year, and to look seriously at what comes next.

CHAI works as a technical and strategic partner to governments in over 35 countries, sitting at the intersection of governments, business and health, negotiating the conditions that drive more equitable access to lifesaving medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics. It's a model with deep roots: CHAI was founded in 2002 at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and its early work negotiating drug prices is a case study in what's possible when the right stakeholders align around a clear goal. Crucially, CHAI only ever works at the invitation of governments, and that distinction shapes everything about how the partnership functions.

Buddy brings his expertise and CHAI's history to bear in this conversation, while staying firmly focused on what's ahead. He describes the current moment as defined by paradox: crisis on one side, and some of the most exciting scientific and biomedical developments in a generation on the other. And he's optimistic: periods of disruption, he reflects, are also opportunities to take stock, think differently, and do things differently.

From there, the conversation ranges widely. Buddy talks about the discipline of doing more with less, finding efficiencies without sacrificing coverage, helping ministries reanalyse budgets, and leveraging new sources of financing. He reflects on scientific breakthroughs as the thing that gives him the most hope, and what it takes to translate discovery into access for the people who need it most. As Chair of Anthropic AI's Long-Term Benefit Trust, he makes a case for why global health leaders should be thinking about AI's potential: not as a fix-all, but as a genuinely powerful technology that low-income countries could use to build healthcare models at scale. And because CHAI only ever enters a country at the invitation of its government, Buddy is attuned to what trust between implementers, governments, and funders actually looks like in practice, starting with humility, and with the conviction that the people closest to a problem are best placed to find its solutions.

On the future and what success looks like, he's both grounded and aspirational: ending the AIDS epidemic in Africa, driving real reductions in malaria mortality, and reaching a point where national governments are genuinely in charge of their own health systems. With better tools, more capital, and more technical knowledge than ever before, he believes these aspirations are within reach, if we're disciplined and intentional enough to pursue them.

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