During a joint interactive webinar on April 19th, Wemos and Cordaid – as part of the Dutch Global Health Alliance – will share our joint report’s main findings and recommendations on health systems strengthening coordination among the ‘3Gs’. The 3Gs are the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (Gavi) and the Global Financing Facility (GFF). They are the three largest global health initiatives that raise and allocate funds to strengthen health systems in low- and middle-income countries.
Representatives from the 3Gs, the Dutch government, and civil society partners in countries working with the 3Gs will exchange their experiences with and thoughts on how these three global health initiatives can improve coordination of their policies to build strong, equitable and inclusive health systems.
Speakers during the webinar will include: Ellen van de Poel (World Bank/GFF representative), Marja Esveld (Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and Hendrik Schmitz (GAP Secretariat, World Health Organization). Paul Janssen will be the moderator.
With our research and webinar, we aim to inform and exchange with other civil society organisations working with and on the 3Gs. and enrich everyone’s lobby and advocacy towards the Dutch government (at the Dutch level), towards governments in other countries, and towards the 3Gs themselves. This research will be followed by a second phase, consisting of country case-studies.
‘Renewed’ interest in health systems strengthening
Our research comes at an opportune time: the COVID-19 pandemic has once more brought the need for strengthening health systems and close international cooperation to the forefront. The Dutch government has been investing development funds in all 3Gs. Also, a ‘renewed’ interest in health systems strengthening has emerged following the pandemic. Coordination and cooperation among the global health initiatives are more relevant than ever. We therefore developed our report with a collaborative approach in mind: our research process involved a focus group discussion with experts from civil society, academia, and the representatives to the 3Gs from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to validate our findings and delve deeper into our recommendations. At the final step, we also shared our draft with the 3Gs and incorporated their feedback to ensure factual accuracy.
Strong health systems are also equitable and inclusive
Our analysis of the 3Gs’ policies focuses on the following points, inspired in part by the WHO’s six building blocks for health systems: health finance, human resources for health, health data and information systems and supply chain management. However, we also added gender and community engagement in our focus. In our view, strengthening and efficiently coordinating efforts on these components will not only result in stronger, but also a more equitable and inclusive health systems.
Watch the recording below.
