Assignment task:
Policy Memo
You have just been elected the Minister of Health in Cambodia or Laos (you choose), responsible for overseeing health policy for the entire country. The government of your country has asked you to prepare a short 2-page (maximum) memo outlining which 3 global health issues you think should receive the most attention in the coming 5 years. Using any data or resources, and in policy memo format, please outline what you believe are the three most important global health issues government should address - and why.
For each issue, you must support your position with data, evidence, and/or a logical argument. Your goal is to put these issues onto the policy agenda, you should not try to solve these issues.
Your policy memo should be composed of 5 paragraphs:
- Paragraph 1 should describe the purpose of the memo and give a summary of the three most important issues.
- Paragraphs 2-4 should begin with a topic sentence, which should be a summary of why you think this issue needs to be on the agenda, and then the rest of the paragraph should use data, evidence, and logic to support your topic sentence.
- Paragraph 5 should briefly summarize your arguments and conclude.
Please come up with 3 different types of issues (e.g., it is not very creative to say that you should focus on the greatest contributor to the global burden of disease, followed by the next most important contributor to the global burden of disease, followed by the next...yawn). Please also be creative in the types of data, logic, or arguments you use to support putting these issues on the agenda (e.g., effect on global health security, on equity, on health systems, or other reasons why it is important).