The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA) have signed an agreement to scale up the health sectors of developing countries.
WHO, in a statement, said the organisations will work together to support a shared agenda to promote and facilitate the demand of health innovation for the benefit of low- and middle-income countries.
Low-income countries or economies are defined as those with a GNI per capita, calculated using the World Bank Atlas method, of $1,035 or less.
Africa carries 25 percent of the world’s disease burden but its share of global health expenditures is less than one percent, according to WHO.
It is also understood that the continent manufactures only a fraction, less than two percent, of the medicines consumed on the continent as a majority of Africans, mostly the poor and those in the middle-income bracket, rely on under-funded public health facilities.
‘This collaboration is another great example of how agencies are coming together in different ways to connect the ever-increasing supply of health innovations to the growing demand for those solutions in WHO member states’, WHO Chief Scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, said, according to the statement.
The statement noted that WHO can support member states’ priorities by helping to link impactful innovations to where they are most needed in countries.
‘Given IDIA’s unique experience and status as a key collaboration platform for innovation funders around the world, joining forces will accelerate and deepen our collective impact in tackling the greatest challenges in global health’, the statement read.
For IDIA founding member, Karlee Silver, she said, ‘We have always believed that just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an ecosystem of actors to scale an innovation, and IDIA members are excited to be working closely with WHO in helping spread impactful innovations to build a better, healthier future for people all over the world’.
The collaboration will cover innovation demand, innovation supply, innovation assessment, innovation scale-up, and innovation and scaling skills development.
Source: WHO
Photo source: Africa CDC
