I am an Eritrean American dedicated toward my goal of becoming an obstetrician/ gynecologist so that I can return to East Africa and expand the health care opportunities of the women of Eritrea. I understand the importance of immediate and short‐term actions, but I also realize that to solve the problems of global health that plague poor nations like Eritrea, the solution is multifaceted and Americans play an integral role.

The global health problem is an economic problem. When nations lack the financial self ‐reliance needed to sustain the necessary infrastructure that facilitates healthy living the result is devastating. The continent of Africa painfully but accurately illustrates this dilemma. Today, many African nations rely on the donations of foreign governments and aid organizations to maintain hospitals and provide medicine to their people. While these services provide immediate relief to some, the continent is left asking for more to drag its people into the coming year. American aid is often times given in the form of food aid, which fuels the environment of financial dependence, and billions of dollars are funneled into the pockets of corrupt leaders providing unrestricted access to natural resources in return. These types of actions are commonplace among Africa’s relationship with the world. The result is high rates of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and treatable disease.

Why don’t we see the rates of these diseases as high in western nations and why is life expectancy of the average African so much lower than that of the average American? The simplified answer is economic prosperity. When nations have the infrastructure that facilitate employment, their economies grow and expand, freeing up finances for education, the educated population can then bolster the economy, and all of this financial development frees up finances for a sustainable health care system. The root of global health issues year after year is the inability of poor nations to reconcile the high demand for adequate healthcare and the catastrophic failure of those desperate nations to provide a stable economic platform.

This is the heartbreaking reality that haunts generations and generations of human beings in developing nations. However, there is always a solution to every problem, we just have to be brave enough to embark on the journey towards attaining that solution.

The first step is to reform the process of foreign aid. After World War II, the United States implemented the Marshall Plan, which provided constructive support towards rebuilding Western Europe’s infrastructure and economic systems. We need to instill that kind of dedication and compassion. Through sustainable projects like transportation and industry developing countries can create lasting success. Of course the US cannot be and should not be expected to meet this demand alone, but the framework of the Marshall Plan is there. With this type of support, societies will be able to allocate the funds for sustaining healthcare themselves as Europe did after they received this type of assistance. For example, the only way to prevent young children from dying of diarrhea is to have the necessary infrastructure that provides clean water. Almost every international health crisis can be linked to that societies inability to offer clean water, sewage systems, adequate shelter, and preventative health services: all aspects of a functioning and monetarily self‐reliant nation.

Secondly, the American government must pressure the people of Africa and other developing countries to take responsibility for their corrupt leaders who stifle any attempt to expand access to health care. This comes in the form of denying the severity of life threatening diseases like AIDS and rerouting financial aid toward military conquest.

And lastly, the people of America have to unite with the peoples of the world under the umbrella of empathy and self‐efficacy.

Centuries of unspeakable tragedy bind the people of Africa and other developing countries to the wealth and prosperity of America. As citizens of humanity we are responsible for transcending the pain of a wrought filled past and those of us willing to use the expansion of sustainable global health must do so.