Prof. Emeritus Karl Theodore is the Director of the HEU, Centre for Health Economics at The University of the West Indies. As a professor of economics at the Department of Economics on the St. Augustine Campus, he taught Public Sector Economics and Fiscal Policy and Development as well as Health Economics. He has also supervised research in these areas for many years. His early work focused on fiscal policy, including tax reform issues, the social sectors including health and social security, and public policy in general. As such, he has functioned in an advisory capacity to many of the regional and international agencies that operate in the Caribbean and where interest is the social sectors. Prof. Theodore over the years has worked closely with the Trade Union Movement, the Credit Union Movement and the Social Security Organizations. His professional work has been mainly directed at protecting the economic position of the ordinary people of our society. He is strong in the belief that the management of our economic affairs has been and continues to be a source of unnecessary hardship to many people. For this reason, he has in the past found it necessary to speak out publicly when economic policies, which he thought were harmful, were being proposed or adapted. In shifting his focus to health Prof. Theodore has concentrated on the efficiency of health systems and on the way these systems touch the lives of the ordinary people in these countries. In this respect much of his work has focused on the health financing system. He has led a multidisciplinary team of professionals in producing a number of technical reports for governments and international agencies and has also produced significant pieces of work on the operations of the health systems in different countries of the Caribbean region. The HEU, Centre for Health Economics (formerly the Health Economics Unit) was founded in 1995 and continues to do extensive work on Health System Strengthening Country Support and related activities in Health, Policy Design and Social Security in the region. Professor Theodore continues to lead a team of professionals with extensive experience in National Health Insurance and Social Security and has co-authored research on fiscal space for the health sector as well as on the economic impact of HIV/AIDS and non-communicable diseases.