achieving a “grand convergence” in global health by 2035: rwanda shows the way; comment on “improving the world’s health through the post-2015 development agenda: perspectives from rwanda”

global health 2035, the report of the lancet commission on investing in health, laid out a bold, highly ambitious framework for making rapid progress in improving global public health outcomes. it showed that with the right health investments, the international community could achieve a “grand convergence” in global health—a reduction in avertable infectious, maternal, and child deaths down to universally low levels—within a generation. rwanda’s success in rapidly reducing such deaths over the last 20 years shows that convergence is feasible. binagwaho and scott have argued that 5 lessons from this success are the importance of equity, quality health services, evidence-informed policy, intersectoral collaboration, and effective collaboration between countries and multilateral agencies. this article re-examines these lessons through the lens of the global health 2035 report to analyze how the experience in rwanda might be generalized for other countries to making progress towards achieving a grand convergence.