This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Solvable.

I'm Jacob Weisberg.

So a lot of funding from international NGOs are focused or earmark on diseases such as HIV, AIDS,

malaria, but the downside of focusing on, shall I say, popular diseases is that you're missing

the neglected diseases.

Providing health care around the world is noble work.

Governments and international donors often have excellent intentions

when they focus on high-impact diseases and when they zero in on maternal health.

But that can also lead doctors to skip past other health issues.

For Dr. Lutfi Lachman, focusing on maternal health

meant that the impact he could have on the community where he was working was too limited.

I even got an award from the United Nations because I was focusing on maternity health, but I kind of feel I don't deserve it because it is not

something that is very high impact. So now I'm just focusing on what the committee needs.

That meant walking away from large international grants. It was a scary proposition, but Dr. Lachman knew there had to be a way to

establish care for a wider range of ailments and to make those medical clinics financially secure.

It was cross-subsidization. You follow the principles of Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel prize winner, founder of the Grameen

Bank, I think the inventor really

of microfinance.

Exactly. I think most people do think of him

in the field of

economics and lending, but

...