The United Nations Health4Life Fund held its third Steering Committee meeting on Monday 18 March 2024. It was the first meeting where the Scottish Government participated following their announcement of a GBP 2.5 million contribution to the Fund made in September 2023.
The meeting had high level participation, with the Government of Kenya’s Principal Secretary for Health Harry Kimtai delivering remarks warmly welcoming Scotland as a partner to the Fund and inviting their full participation on the Steering Committee.
Scotland was represented by their Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Gregor Smith, who welcomed the opportunity to provide technical and strategic leadership to the Fund, noting that “NCDs are a global challenge, demanding global solutions and we are committed to playing our part”. In his remarks, he recalled that systemic inequalities in accessing care and medicines have led to 25 of the 28 lives lost every minute prematurely from NCDs occurring in the Global South.
Sir Gregor applauded the Fund’s strategic approach towards partnerships, saying “We particularly recognise the expertise and leadership, especially from the Global South, which will be central to the success of the Health4Life Fund. And by placing Global South leadership at the heart of the Fund, we can work to ensure the delivery of effective multisectoral interventions tailored to the specific needs and priorities of our partner countries.”
The UN MPTF Office and the Secretariat jointly gave a presentation on the progress made on the Fund’s operations, including the first competitive call for expressions of interest launched in December 2023 to Malawi, Rwanda, and Zambia. It is expected that one or more of these countries will receive the first Health4Life Fund grant in the coming months.
UNICEF’s Director of Health Programmes, Helga Fogstad, who represented the agency at the meeting was enthusiastic about the potential for community-level impact that the Scottish Government’s contribution is poised to make. As part of her facilitation of a discussion on resource mobilization, Helga also called upon the Fund’s partners to host fundraising events alongside significant global health fora such as the World Health Summit.
Kenya and Scotland who are currently collaborating on a high-level, invitation-only event in the margins of the 77th World Health Assembly gave a briefing of the discussions on the panels, and the expected outcomes.
“This event will serve as a platform for increasing the Fund’s visibility and bring in new partners” said PS Kimtai, expressing Kenya’s enthusiasm for the event’s potential to attract additional investments.
Other high-level participants at the meeting included Uruguay’s Advisor to the Minister of Health, Marianela Buzzi, UNDP’s Director for Health and HIV, Mandeep Dhaliwal, NCD Alliance’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, Alison Cox, and James Sale, who is United for Global Mental Health’s Deputy CEO.
Svetlana Axelrod, the Director of the Global NCD Platform who co-chaired the meeting on behalf of Assistant Director General Jérôme Salomon, closed the meeting with an agreement that the next meeting will be held during the fourth quarter of the year.
The summary report of the meeting will be uploaded on the Health4Life Fund’s website here.
Read the Health4Life Fund and Scottish Government’s reactions on Twitter.
For more information, please reach out to Nick Banatvala at banatvalan@who.int.