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The Road to Health: Paved With Good Intentions
Posted by Ruth Levine at 12:00 AM
Officials from 50 of the world's poorest countries just announced the pre-launch of a new initiative to fight one of the greatest scourges in global health. The Global Partnership to Battle Donor Attention Deficit Disorder (to be known as GloPBADD) will develop preventive and therapeutic drugs and devices to increase the ability of those in the global health community to sustain their attention for up to two decades - the period over which the major returns in investments in health system capacity strengthening are likely to be observed. Scientists expect the most successful products to be a combination of two drugs: One is a long-acting anti-hyperactivity medication that increases attention span; the other is an anti-depressant activated when the individual is exposed to negative headlines or political setbacks. Animal studies suggest that this approach may have promising application to the donor population - welcome news given the obvious difficulties with behavioral approaches.
The initiative is modeled after several innovatively financed innovations in global health. As a product development partnership, GloPBADD will bring together multinational pharmaceutical companies, generic drug manufacturers, the biotechnology industry, 14 UN agencies, 27 world famous schools of public health and 422 NGOs to streamline and accelerate the R&D pathway for cutting-edge health technologies.
GloPBADD follows in the footsteps of UNITAID, and will be funded via an innovative financing mechanism based on air travel. Officials in the participating countries will contribute the value of all airfare associated with attendance at international meetings called by donor agencies. By not traveling to the meetings, the officials will be able to provide an unlimited flow of funds to the partnership and at the same time minimize carbon emissions.
The national officials state in the pre-launch press release that they drew inspiration from recommendations in a 15-year series of World Bank reports. "We realized that if the World Bank could write the same things again and again for more than a decade, we had 'proof of concept' that donor attention could in fact be sustained." They note that they found the recommendations themselves so trenchant that they based their decision to create the GloPBADD on a careful analysis of burden of disease and cost-effectiveness data, within a public finance framework that elegantly elucidates public, semi-public, semi-private and private goods. Moreover, they note that they were able to overcome fierce political opposition to the initiative with nuanced and evidence-based arguments.
Today's pre-launch will be followed by sequenced launches: in May at the World Health Assembly; in June at the Pacific Health Summit; in July at the G-8; in September at the Clinton Global Initiative; and in January 2009 at the World Economic Forum. At each of these events, the 50 officials from low-income countries will be accompanied by one "donor person" representing the Northern Hemisphere.
In response to this new effort, a donor agency official who asked not to be named expressed guarded gratitude about the April 1 announcement. "We do indeed very much appreciate the efforts on our behalf," he said. "I'm just worried that we might not be able to pay for it once it's available. I sure hope someone’s working on that!"
Posted by Ruth Levine at 12:00 AM
Officials from 50 of the world's poorest countries just announced the pre-launch of a new initiative to fight one of the greatest scourges in global health. The Global Partnership to Battle Donor Attention Deficit Disorder (to be known as GloPBADD) will develop preventive and therapeutic drugs and devices to increase the ability of those in the global health community to sustain their attention for up to two decades - the period over which the major returns in investments in health system capacity strengthening are likely to be observed. Scientists expect the most successful products to be a combination of two drugs: One is a long-acting anti-hyperactivity medication that increases attention span; the other is an anti-depressant activated when the individual is exposed to negative headlines or political setbacks. Animal studies suggest that this approach may have promising application to the donor population - welcome news given the obvious difficulties with behavioral approaches.
The initiative is modeled after several innovatively financed innovations in global health. As a product development partnership, GloPBADD will bring together multinational pharmaceutical companies, generic drug manufacturers, the biotechnology industry, 14 UN agencies, 27 world famous schools of public health and 422 NGOs to streamline and accelerate the R&D pathway for cutting-edge health technologies.
GloPBADD follows in the footsteps of UNITAID, and will be funded via an innovative financing mechanism based on air travel. Officials in the participating countries will contribute the value of all airfare associated with attendance at international meetings called by donor agencies. By not traveling to the meetings, the officials will be able to provide an unlimited flow of funds to the partnership and at the same time minimize carbon emissions.
The national officials state in the pre-launch press release that they drew inspiration from recommendations in a 15-year series of World Bank reports. "We realized that if the World Bank could write the same things again and again for more than a decade, we had 'proof of concept' that donor attention could in fact be sustained." They note that they found the recommendations themselves so trenchant that they based their decision to create the GloPBADD on a careful analysis of burden of disease and cost-effectiveness data, within a public finance framework that elegantly elucidates public, semi-public, semi-private and private goods. Moreover, they note that they were able to overcome fierce political opposition to the initiative with nuanced and evidence-based arguments.
Today's pre-launch will be followed by sequenced launches: in May at the World Health Assembly; in June at the Pacific Health Summit; in July at the G-8; in September at the Clinton Global Initiative; and in January 2009 at the World Economic Forum. At each of these events, the 50 officials from low-income countries will be accompanied by one "donor person" representing the Northern Hemisphere.
In response to this new effort, a donor agency official who asked not to be named expressed guarded gratitude about the April 1 announcement. "We do indeed very much appreciate the efforts on our behalf," he said. "I'm just worried that we might not be able to pay for it once it's available. I sure hope someone’s working on that!"