Innovative finance and its promise for global health

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Few global health institutions focus as much on innovative finance as UNITAID. The global health initiative, established in 2006 and hosted by the World Health Organization in Geneva, uses its understanding of how to address market shortcomings to improve access to quality-assured treatment and diagnostics for HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria patients in low-income countries. What can the global health community learn from UNITAID’s example? Devex Editor Rolf Rosenkranz asks Executive Director Denis Broun.

Why will traditional donor funds alone not be able to tackle the big global health challenges of our time?

Countries’ capacity to address their own needs has increased remarkably over the past 10 years thanks to economic growth. Look at the way Nigeria is handling polio eradication these days: It’s completely different from how it was done a decade ago. So it could be argued that traditional types of donations are less needed. But we know that international mechanisms such the Global Fund or UNITAID have a significant impact on global public health issues, and provide sound additional funding options to bilateral routes.

Source: Devex (link opens in a new window)

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Health Care
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public health