Conflict, war and medicine (catch all).

[ganulv]

The most well thought out strategy in the world will still fail if it is not properly executed at the regional/local level. […] The solutions to many or most of these problems are at the micro, not macro level.

With the sad reversal of the effective eradication of cholera in Haiti we can see that, yes, you have to get things right at the lower levels if you want a regional or national public health initiative to succeed. But the notion that many or most public health issues is a micro issue is just incorrect. For example, what can be done about MDR–TB at the local level besides treat and isolate infected individuals?

The idea that a Western power can come into a developing world state or region and implement a "grand strategy" that will fix their problems for them is, to borrow a phrase, a fatal conceit.

I don’t disagree, but I nowhere said that the West had to be involved at all.

Few states have the resources, never mind the national will, to devote to that kind of work. None that I have seen have shown any particular talent for it in any case.

The Musevini-lead anti-HIV/AIDS campaign in Uganda is an example of success at that kind of work, and one which the West (unless you count Cuba, whose role was minor in any case, as the West) did little to formulate or execute.