Funding pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response through partnership models


Effective integration of the Pandemic Fund within the existing global health architecture requires that duplication of efforts be avoided, and that the function of the Fund be harmonised with that of other major funds, chiefly the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. We propose that the Global Fund, the world’s leading financing mechanism for LMICs to fight three of the most challenging infectious diseases of our time—namely, HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria
—occupy a central position in channelling the World Bank’s Pandemic Fund resources to LMICs.
The Pandemic Fund’s collaborative approach is based on a partnership model where stakeholders are represented throughout its decision-making processes. This model involves having a board with executive functions and a governance structure where donors and implementers have an equal number of seats and voting rights, as well as civil society and private sector donor seats. The model also entails engaging at the local level through its Country Coordinating Mechanisms, national committees that process funding applications and oversee grants for individual countries. These committees include representatives from all sectors involved in the response to diseases (eg, academic institutions, civil society, faith-based organisations, multilateral and bilateral agencies, non-governmental organisations, technical agencies, the private sector, and people affected by HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria).
The Global Fund has raised more than US$3·8 billion for its COVID-19 response mechanism, which were distributed to 109 countries and 22 multicountry programmes.
Formally moving into the pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response space is a natural progression of the Global Fund’s existing activities, which could be implemented with great complementarity to the World Bank’s Pandemic Fund. For successful implementation to happen, decisive action by the Global Fund’s board is needed to expand its mandate.