If we didn't have the United Nations, we would live in a very bad world

Jun 04 , 2019 | Social Good

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Professor Ilona Kickbusch is one of the world's foremost thinkers and visionaries on global health.

A key architect of the 1986 Ottawa Charter, one of the most vital international agreements on health promotion, her innovative work has transformed the world and our most vulnerable communities in particular. Currently at Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Ilona has had a distinguished career, including at the World Health Organization and Yale University.

She has also helped train many of today’s health leaders in China. In this interview, James Chau brings her back to her early years in India, and how being the child of a German diplomat helped shape her career and the influence she continues to exercise.  

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