Aligning Multilateral Support for Global Public Goods for Health Under the Global Action Plan

Abstract

Twelve multilateral health and development organizations have signed on to a joint Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All (the Global Action Plan). The Global Action Plan includes a call for signatory organizations to align efforts to strengthen the provision of global public goods (GPGs) for health. In this paper, we examined multilateral support for GPGs for health, focusing on the four largest multilateral health organizations — Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the World Bank; and the World Health Organization. Our analysis aimed to understand how these organizations define GPGs for health and support such goods. Taking a cross-cutting view of the four organizations, it also aimed to lay out the steps these organizations could take to align their support for GPGs for health to deliver on the Global Action Plan. To conduct this analysis, we conducted a desk-based review including relevant academic and grey literature, strategy and finance documents, and grants and projects databases. We also conducted 46 key informant interviews with senior leadership among these organizations as well as individuals from think tanks and academia who have expertise in GPGs for health and/or our multilateral agencies of focus. Overall, we found that these four organizations lack an explicit GPGs for health strategy and they do not use a common definition of GPGs for health. All four are supporting GPGs for health in some form, through a variety of mechanisms, and it would be valuable to assess which of these are working the most effectively. A long-term, sustained financing mechanism for GPGs for health, and an overarching governance mechanism, will ultimately be needed.