Governments have dedicated a pivotal role to the private sector in the implementation and financing of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. This has pushed a turn towards the private sector, the promotion of multi-stakeholder partnerships between public and private actors. However, far too often there is a... considerable gap between the social and environmental commitments companies make publicly in political fora like the UN and the actual effects of their production patterns and investment strategies on people and the environment. A new working paper, published by Brot für die Welt, Global Policy Forum and MISEREOR provides an overview of the ways and means by which the UN involves business actors in the debates around the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. It describes new initiatives and alliances of business actors around SDG implementation at the international level, and their main messages and policy proposals. With a few selected examples it contrasts the sustainability rhetoric of corporations with their business reality. And finally, the working paper draws conclusions and formulates recommendations for policymakers on how to increase the benefits of UN-business interactions in implementing the 2030 Agenda - and how to reduce associated risks and negative side effects.
more
Ghana is attracting global attention for efforts to provide health insurance to all citizens through the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). With the program’s strong emphasis on maternal and child health, an expectation of the program is that members will have increased use of relevant servi...ces. The NHIS does appear to enable pregnant women to access services and allow caregivers to seek care early for sick children, but both the quantitative and qualitative assessments also indicated that the poor and least educated were less likely to have insurance than their wealthier and more educated counterparts.
more
(African Development Bank policy research document 1)
The report examines financing in the battle against malaria, focusing on the role of foreign aid. It analyzes whether or not a disease such as malaria can be controlled or eliminated in Africa without health aid. It also presents a theoretic...al model of the economics of malaria and shows how health aid can help avoid the “disease trap.” While calling for increased funding from international sources to fight malaria, it also recommends that African countries step up their own efforts, including on domestic resource mobilization. In 2016, governments of endemic countries contributed 31% of the estimated total of US $ 2.7 billion.
Between 2000 and 2014, malaria control efforts were scaled up and worldwide deaths were cut in half. But declining health aid and deprioritized vertical aid (as for malaria), despite its potentially great efficiency, have led to rising numbers of cases. In 2016, 216 million cases of malaria were reported, up from 211 million in 2015. Africa was home to 90% of all malaria cases and 91% of malaria deaths in 2016. Progress appears to have stalled in the global fight against the disease.
more
Measuring progress towards universal health coverage.
This sixth edition of Health at a Glance Asia/Pacific presents a set of key indicators of health status, the determinants of health, health care resources and utilisation, health care expenditure and financing and quality of care across 27 Asia-...Pacific countries and territories. It also provides a series of dashboards to compare performance across countries and territories, and a thematic analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Asia/Pacific health systems.
more
These organisations have joined forces to accelerate access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics by leveraging multilateral finance and trade solutions, particularly for low- and middle-income countries.
The aim is to vaccinate at least 40 percent of people in every country by the end... of 2021, and at least 60 percent by mid-2022. The effort will track, coordinate, and advance delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, working with governments and partners at the global and local levels to address finance and trade barriers to ensure that vulnerable populations have access to these life-saving tools. It supports the goals of the ACT-Accelerator and complementary initiatives.
more
Integrating neglected tropical diseases into global health and development: fourth WHO report on neglected tropical diseases evaluates the changing global public health landscape; assesses progress towards the 2020 targets; and considers the possible core elements of a strategic vision to integratin...g neglected tropical diseases into the 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Advances have been made through expanded interventions delivered through five public health approaches: innovative and intensified disease management; preventive chemotherapy; vector ecology and management; veterinary public health services; and the provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene. In 2015 alone nearly one billion people were treated for at least one disease and significant gains were achieved in relieving the symptoms and consequences of diseases for which effective tools are scarce; important reductions were achieved in the number of new cases of sleeping sickness, of visceral leishmaniasis in South-East Asia and also of Buruli ulcer.
The report also considers vector control strategies and discusses the importance of the draft WHO Global Vector Control Response 2017–2030. It argues that veterinary public health requires a multifaceted approach across the human–animal interface as well as a multisectoral programme of work to protect and improve the physical, mental and social well-being of humans, including veterinary, water, sanitation and hygiene.
Integration of activities and interventions into broader health systems is crucial, and despite challenges, has the potential to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage while advancing the 2030 Agenda.
In short, this report drives the message home that “no one must be left behind”.
more
A System of Health Accounts 2011: Revised Edition provides an updated and systematic description of the financial flows related to the consumption of health care goods and services. As demands for information increase and more countries implement and institutionalise health accounts according to the... system, the data produced are expected to be more comparable, more detailed and more policy relevant. It builds on the original OECD Manual, published in 2000, and the Guide to Producing National Health Accounts to create a single global framework for producing health expenditure accounts that can help track resource flows from sources to uses. It is the result of a collaborative effort between the OECD, WHO and the European Commission, and sets out in more detail the boundaries, the definitions and the concepts – responding to health care systems around the globe – from the simplest to the more complicated.
more
COVID-19 has altered health sector capacity in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Cost data to inform evidence-based priority setting are urgently needed. Consequently, in this paper, we calculate the full economic health sector costs of COVID-19 clinical management in 79 LMICs under di...fferent epidemiological scenarios.
more
Debt has become a substantial burden for developing countries due to limited access to financing, rising borrowing costs, currency devaluations and sluggish growth. These factors compromise the countries’ ability to react to emergencies, tackle climate change and invest in their people and the fut...ure. The latest report, A World of Debt, discusses the actions needed to unleash the resources needed to build a more prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable world.
more
Promoting and protecting health is essential to human welfare and sustained economic and social development. This was recognized more than 30 years ago by the Alma-Ata Declaration signatories, who noted that Health for All would contribute
both to a better quality of life and also to global peace a...nd security
more
Background: Mental health has recently gained increasing attention on global health and development agendas, including calls for an increase in international funding. Few studies have previously characterized official development assistance for mental health (DAMH) in a nuanced and differentiated ma...nner in order to support future funding efforts. Methods: Data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Creditor Reporting System were obtained through keyword searches. Projects were manually reviewed and categorized into projects dedicated entirely to mental health and projects that mention mental health (as one of many aims). Analysis of donor, recipient, and sector characteristics within and between categories was undertaken cumulatively and yearly.
more
Mental disorders are a leading cause of the global burden of disease, and the provision of mental health services in developing countries remains very limited and far from equitable. Using the Creditor Reporting System, we estimate the amounts and patterns of development assistance for global mental... health (DAMH) between 2007 and 2013. This allows us to examine how well international donors have responded to calls by global mental health advocates to scale up evidence-based services. Although DAMH did increase between 2007 and 2013, it remains low both in absolute terms and as a proportion of total development assistance for health (DAH). The average annual DAMH between 2007 and 2013 was US$133.57 million, and the proportion of DAH attributed to mental health is less than 1%. Approximately 48% of total DAMH was for humanitarian assistance, education, and civil services. More annual DAMH was channelled into the nonpublic sector than the public sector. Despite an expanding body of evidence suggesting that sustainable mental health care can be effectively integrated into existing health systems at relatively low cost, mental health has not received significant development assistance.
more
How do the global goals crowd in international financing and inform domestic priorities? A new AidData report assesses the historical baseline for funding to the SDGs.
The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) was established by World Health Organization Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland in January 2000 to assess the place of health in global economic development. Although health is widely understood to be both a central goal and an important outcome ...of development, the importance of investing in health to promote economic development and poverty reduction has been much less appreciated. We have found that extending the coverage of crucial health services, including a relatively small number of specific interventions, to the world’s poor could save millions of lives each year, reduce poverty, spur economic development, and promote global security.
more
Financing for malaria control has increased as part of international commitments to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We aimed to identify the unmet financial needs that would be biologically and economically equitable and would increase the chances of reaching worldwide malaria-contr...ol ambitions.
more
G7 leaders commit US$ 4.3 billion to finance global equitable access to tests, treatments and vaccines in 2021
In In recent years, China has increased its international engagement in health. Nonetheless, the lack
of data on contributions has limited efforts to examine contributions from China. Existing estimates that track
development assistance for health (DAH) from China have relied primarily on one data...set. Furthermore, little is known
about the disbursing agencies especially the multilaterals through which contributions are disbursed and how these
are changing across time. In this study, we generated estimates of DAH from China from 2007 through 2017 and
disaggregated those estimates by disbursing agency and health focus area.
more
Introduction
In 2017, development assistance for health (DAH) comprised 5.3% of total health spending in lowincome countries. Despite the key role DAH plays in global health-spending, little is known about the characteristics of assistance that may be associated with committed assistance that is a...ctually disbursed. In this analysis, we examine associations between these characteristics and disbursement of committed assistance.
Methods
We extracted data from the Creditor Reporting System of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and the WHO National Health Accounts database. Factors examined were off-budget assistance, administrative assistance, publicly sourced assistance and assistance to health systems strengthening. Recipient-country characteristics examined were perceived level of corruption, civil fragility and gross domestic product per capita (GDPpc). We used linear regression methods for panel of data to assess the proportion of committed aid that was disbursed for a given country-year, for each data source.
Results
Factors that were associated with a higher disbursement rates include off-budget aid (p<0.001), lower administrative expenses (p<0.01), lower perceived corruption in recipient country (p<0.001), lower fragility in recipient country (p<0.05) and higher GDPpc (p<0.05).
Conclusion
Substantial gaps remain between commitments and disbursements. Characteristics of assistance (administrative, publicly sourced) and indicators of government transparency and fragility are also important drivers associated with disbursement of DAH. There remains a continued need for better aid flow reporting standards and clarity around aid types for better measurement of DAH.
more
Infectious disease epidemics pose a threat to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) both directly—by worsening women’s and children’s health outcomes—and indirectly—by reducing their access to services.1–4 Greater investment is therefore needed to mitigate the negative... effects of COVID-19 and avoid a reversal of recent gains in RMNCH coverage and outcomes.1 However, COVID-19 has reduced household and government budgets,5 and there are concerns about the extent to which resources have been diverted away from RMNCH.
more
A global Pandemic, Preparedness and Response (RRR) architecture