• Health
  • Energy and Climate

Beyond the 77th World Health Assembly: Harnessing the power of partnerships

  • The Africa-Europe Foundation

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The month of May highlighted the interconnected nature of agendas at the multilateral stage and as a result the urgent need to bridge siloes and bring actors together.

From the Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa to the World Health Assembly and Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank, calls for increased financing rang clear. But as priorities compete for attention, we don’t just need more money, but better money, leveraging investments for effective co-benefits across sectors that also build resilience and capacity at local levels.

As the Africa-Europe Foundation we:

Brought together the Collective Minds Climate & Health Council

Brought together the Collective Minds Climate and Health Council to reflect on the barriers and needs for flexible finance solutions that address the impact of climate change on community health. Friendly, flexible and fast finance was the main ask.

Country ministers and representatives of top Banks and Funds met face to face to discuss the challenges of overly bureaucratic applications that require simplicity for timely interventions, and the need for strong project evaluations by funders to build the evidence base on return on investment for the crowding in of additional financing.

Health ministers pushed for better coordination with climate and finance counterparts who often have the ear of climate-focused investors to build a unified strategy in the face of climate change, given the health community is in the receiving end of the crisis. The Council expanded its partnership to include six new members:

  • Yacine Djibo, Founder and Executive Director of Speak Up Africa, Senegal
  • Pascal Lamy, Vice-President of the Paris Peace Forum and former Director General of the WTO
  • Dr. Omnia El Omrani, Health Envoy for the 28th United Nations Conference on Climate Change
  • Dr. Marina Romanello, Executive Director of Lancet Countdown
  • Dr. Monique Vledder, Practice Manager for Global Health, Nutrition and Population, World Bank, alternating with
  • Dr. Tamer Rabie, Global Program lead for Climate and Health

Learn more here.

Elevated the need for an Expert Commission

Elevated the need for an Expert Commission that looks at the question of cost and return on investment of financing climate and pandemic resilient health systems. The discussion brought together experts and practitioners including Dr Maria Neira (WHO), VP Thomas Ostros (EIB), Naveen Roa (Rockefeller), Dr. Marina Romanello (Lancet Countdown), Dr. Bassim Birkland (SEED Global Health), Kate Kelland (CEPI) and Aggrey Aluso (RANA).

The notion that health system financing will always bring a strong return, was underscored by the statement: when we have our health we all want several things, but when we don’t have health, we only want one thing.

Strong investments to build climate and pandemic resilient health systems need to cut across sectors, engage different actors, and target basic, no regret interventions which advance access to services while contributing to future preparedness and resilience.

These interventions include training an agile health workforce and fostering innovation through digital, energy and agriculture transitions, with clean cooking solutions identified as smart investments. The latter is a sector which the Africa-Europe Foundation has advocated for since its inception, and continues to do so.

Led coordination between African and European philanthropies

Led coordination between African and European philanthropies as a first step to strengthen ties, and contributed to the OECD netFWD meeting at WHA. Discussions touched on the need for philanthropies to:

  • Ensure strategic alignment between each other to better coordinate funding so resources are effectively leveraged, combining project-based with sustained financing so local actors have more predictability in their strategies.
  • Be more demand driven, led by communities instead of imposing their own leadership to strengthen utility and credibility. Solutions often emerge from the community where the challenge lies.
  • Be more catalytic, funding the first mile to derisk the last mile, using their own evaluations to point to best practices for larger scale financing from other global lenders and actors.

These discussions and commitments cannot remain inside summit and event walls. As the Africa-Europe Foundation we continue to track progress on policy and financing commitments made across the continents and at the international stage. From the clean cooking declaration to continued negotiations on the pandemic treaty, and the operationalization of the Climate and Health Resolution, AEF will continue bring critical actors together to unlock opportunities that drive concrete solutions for common agendas.