Under Secretary Lago Chairs First Americas RISE for Health Steering Group Meeting to Build Resilient Health Economies Across the Hemisphere

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Contact: Office of Public Affairs
Email: publicaffairs@trade.gov
Phone: 202-482-3809

WASHINGTON - Today, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Marisa Lago led the first Americas RISE for Health (“RISE”) Steering Group meeting, bringing together ministers and vice ministers from across the hemisphere in a first-of-its-kind effort to build resilient, inclusive, sustainable, and equitable health ecosystems and economies in the Americas.

Led by the U.S. Department of Commerce, with the support of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, RISE is an annual multisectoral forum with the aim of bolstering the resiliency of the hemisphere’s health economies and ecosystems by identifying, catalyzing, and accelerating multisectoral collaboration.

“As we learned during the pandemic, collaboration among governments, the private sector and civil society is crucial to resilient health economies and ecosystems,” said Under Secretary Lago. “RISE serves as the first platform for the region to advance this much-needed collaboration. Today, we formalized the RISE governance structure, allowing us to launch six substantive workstreams. We thank the Dominican Republic, Panama and Uruguay for leading RISE as members of the Steering Group and as chairs of the workstreams. We look forward to working with all the governments in the region to build resilient health ecosystems and economies.”

RISE will next launch six pillar workstreams in the following areas:

1. Building resilient, pandemic-prepared health economies and supply chains
2. Accelerating regulatory improvements
3. Ensuring sufficient, efficient and equitable health investments
4. Creating ethical environments in which our health economies can thrive
5. Building better health for all communities
6. Enabling digital health solutions

RISE is complementary to a government-only forum – the Economy & Health Dialogue of the Americas (EHA) – led by the U.S. Department of State. The United States announced both mechanisms on the margins of the IX Summit of the Americas, hosted by President Biden in Los Angeles. Both EHA and RISE were launched in March 2023 in Panama City, on the margins of the Inter-American Development Bank of Governors meeting, with the participation of 11 governments, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the Pan American Health Organization, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), senior executives from the private sector, civil society representatives, and members of academia.

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