Jim Yong Kim

Dr. Jim Yong Kim, whose career includes leading large-scale initiatives to tackle tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, has turned his expertise to the mental health crisis that has emerged from the permacrisis, the overlapping burdens of climate change, social inequality and political instability.

The drain on our collective wellbeing is well documented — from ballooning rates depression and anxiety, especially among young people, to rising suicide rates, and a dearth of adequate care for those with severe mental illness. But these problems are also solvable, says Dr. Kim.

He presents compelling analysis of how proven medical interventions merged with broader social movements to fundamentally alter the course of past pandemics. And he makes the case that a similar mix of science and activism must come together to tackle mental health. The current challenge is one of mental health care delivery, with meaningful interventions that are both medical and social. We now have the knowledge, tools and experience to deliver much better outcomes at scale.

With decades of experience as a leader at Partners In Health, the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School, and then as the president of both Dartmouth College and the World Bank Group, Dr. Kim offers unique insight into the challenges and potential benefits of a mental health movement that would transform the stigma and poor treatment outcomes that have plagued the field.

He’ll present his vision to energize this movement, and give practical advice on how audience members can improve mental health for themselves, their families, their communities, and the world.

In this talk, Dr. Jim Yong Kim discusses the importance of investments in the poorest communities, and how modern financial and business models are transforming the effectiveness of investments in the developing world.  His life’s work has been to fund and execute innovative programs to address infrastructure needs, prevent pandemics, and help the millions of people forcibly displaced from their homes by climate shocks, conflict, and violence. As a former President of the World Bank and partner at Global Infrastructure Partners, Dr. Kim discusses the importance of infrastructure and human capital in emerging markets to tackle the complex and interconnected issues of global health, economic prosperity and climate change.

After his tenure as President of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Yong Kim joined Global Infrastructure Partners to invest in emerging markets to improve quality of life, economic prosperity, and health, and to mitigate the effects of climate change in those communities. Addressing issues as varied as sustained drought, plagues, and internet access are all part of his mission to invest in human capital and the prevailing issues in developing countries. In this talk, Dr. Kim addresses how the right economic investments can combat climate change, and as a result improve the health, economic prosperity and security of the developing world.

In this talk, Former President of the World Bank Dr. Jim Yong Kim discusses the world’s most pressing global health problems, which are also economic and global security risks. He shares his insights from his decades of work serving the world’s poorest and most desperate communities as a Co-Founder of Partners in Health, a global health non-profit whose mission is to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need and to serve as an antidote to despair. He inspires and challenges with the question that inspired his viral TED Talk: Doesn’t everyone deserve a chance at a good life?