Innovation to fund global health

Monday, January 14, 2013

By Taufiqur Rahman, international health consultant

Millions of lives are saved today in developing countries because of bold, innovative financing arrangements over last 10 years. These financing mechanisms are good examples of private sector partnership with public sector for common good.

These financing initiatives have pooled large public sector funding with private sector resources, thus allowing tax payers funds to have much larger impact than would otherwise be possible. Some of the examples are given below.

In 2000, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) was set up by major donors to provide support for immunization programs. GAVI has immunized 296 millions children in 74 countries and committed $7.2 billions to immunize an additional 245 million children by 2016. By increasing demand, pooling global requirements, and making additional resources available, GAVI has helped reduce prices of vaccines and brought in more producers in the market place.

In 2002, The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria was set up. Over last 11 years, it has put 4.2 million HIV patients on treatment, treated over 9.5 million TB cases, and saved millions of lives from Malaria. Predictable large scale financing helped major reduction in prices of health products especially HIV treatment drugs ARV.

Source: The Hill (link opens in a new window)