International Funding for Global Common Goods for Health: An Analysis Using the Creditor Reporting System and G-FINDER Databases.

West Africa's Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016 exposed, among other problems, the under-funding of transnational global health activities known as global common goods for health (CGH), global functions such as pandemic preparedness and research and development (R&D) for neglected diseases. To mobilize sustainable funding for global CGH, it is critical first to understand existing financing flowing to different types of global CGH. In this study, we estimate trends in international spending for global CGH in 2013, 2015, and 2017, encompassing the era before and after the Ebola epidemic. We use a measure of international funding that combines official development assistance (ODA) for health with additional international spending on R&D for diseases of poverty, a measure called ODA+. We classify ODA+ into funding for three global functions-provision of global public goods, management of cross-border externalities, and fostering of global health leadership and stewardship-and country-specific aid. International funding for global functions increased between 2013 and 2015 by $1.4 billion to a total of $7.3 billion in 2015. It then declined to $7.0 billion in 2017, accounting for 24% of all ODA+ in 2017. These findings provide empirical evidence of the reactive nature of international funders for global CGH. While international funders increased funding for global functions in response to the Ebola outbreak, they failed to sustain that funding. To meet future global health challenges proactively, international funders should allocate more funding for global functions.

Improving resource mobilisation for global health R&D: a role for coordination platforms?

Achieving many of the health targets in the Sustainable Development Goals will not be possible without increased financing for global health research and development (R&D). Yet financing for neglected disease product development fell from 2009-2015, with the exception of a one-time injection of Ebola funding. An important cause of the global health R&D funding gap is lack of coordination across R&D initiatives. In particular, existing initiatives lack robust priority-setting processes and transparency about investment decisions. Low-income countries (LICs) and middle-income countries (MICs) are also often excluded from global investment initiatives and priority-setting discussions, leading to limited investment by these countries. An overarching global health R&D coordination platform is one promising response to these challenges. This analysis examines the essential functions such a platform must play, how it should be structured to maximise effectiveness and investment strategies for diversifying potential investors, with an emphasis on building LIC and MIC engagement. Our analysis suggests that a coordination platform should have four key functions: building consensus on R&D priorities; facilitating information sharing about past and future investments; building in accountability mechanisms to track R&D spending against investment targets and curating a portfolio of prioritised projects alongside mechanisms to link funders to these projects. Several design features are likely to increase the platform's success: public ownership and management; separation of coordination and financing functions; inclusion of multiple diseases; coordination across global and national efforts; development of an international R&D 'roadmap' and a strategy for the financial sustainability of the platform's secretariat.

Achieving a "Grand Convergence" in Global Health by 2035: Rwanda Shows the Way Comment on "Improving the World's Health Through the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Perspectives From Rwanda".

Global Health 2035, the report of The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health, laid out a bold, highly ambitious framework for making rapid progress in improving global public health outcomes. It showed that with the right health investments, the international community could achieve a "grand convergence" in global health-a reduction in avertable infectious, maternal, and child deaths down to universally low levels-within a generation. Rwanda's success in rapidly reducing such deaths over the last 20 years shows that convergence is feasible. Binagwaho and Scott have argued that 5 lessons from this success are the importance of equity, quality health services, evidence-informed policy, intersectoral collaboration, and effective collaboration between countries and multilateral agencies. This article re-examines these lessons through the lens of the Global Health 2035 report to analyze how the experience in Rwanda might be generalized for other countries to making progress towards achieving a grand convergence.

How much donor financing for health is channelled to global versus country-specific aid functions?

The slow global response to the Ebola crisis in west Africa suggests that important gaps exist in donor financing for key global functions, such as support for health research and development for diseases of poverty and strengthening of outbreak preparedness. In this Health Policy, we use the International Development Statistics databases to quantify donor support for such functions. We classify donor funding for health into aid for global functions (provision of global public goods, management of cross-border externalities, and fostering of leadership and stewardship) versus country-specific aid. We use a new measure of donor funding that combines official development assistance (ODA) for health with additional donor spending on research and development (R&D) for diseases of poverty. Much R&D spending falls outside ODA--ie, the assistance that is conventionally reported through ODA databases of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This expanded definition, which we term health ODA plus, provides a more comprehensive picture of donor support for health that could reshape how policy makers will approach their support for global health.