What is the value of innovation?
Addressing slow, inequitable introduction and scaling up of game-changing innovations has been a significant focus of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Their investments which help fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria have had an impact on these preventable diseases and the strengthening of health systems.
Given the importance and scope of improvement to deliver the “global health goals”, the Global Fund’s new Strategy for 2023-2028 has put more emphasis on “equitable innovations deployment”, articulating the need to be “working with partners to take an end-to-end view to rapidly address bottlenecks to deployment to those most in need”. This is even more pertinent considering shortening timelines to 2030, the disastrous effects of COVID-19, and the plateauing/reversal of progress against the three diseases.
The Global Fund invests more than US$4 billion a year in more than 100 countries. Evaluations and reviews have recommended exploring how scalable innovations particularly products, approaches, interventions and tools could be better supported but a comprehensive evaluation focused on Global Fund’s investment in innovations has not previously been done.
CEPA, based in the UK, is conducting an evaluation of the Global Fund’s work on accelerating the equitable deployment and access to innovations since 2017. Clare Strachan, a Principal Advisor with the Nossal Institute, will contribute strategic thinking as well as case studies in the Asia Pacific. The project will focus on the evaluation of products, interventions and service design funded by the Global Fund and by other partners as it relates to the Global Fund’s mandate. The evaluation will identify successes, weaknesses, effective models and practices. The evaluation team will explore the opportunities for, and challenges facing, equitable deployment and access to innovations.
Clare Strachan is a Principal Advisor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health. She is cross-sectoral in her approach to global health and has a broad range of experience and interests. Clare's technical work has focused on technical advisory services to a range of global health organisations, large scale evaluations and strategic reviews, applied research, and evidence-based program design and implementation