G20 Partnership Events

Annual Health20 Summit 2019 – Financing for Global Health Innovation & Sustainable Development

Tokyo

24th June 2019

On 24th June 2019, the G20 Partnership held their annual Health20 Summit in Tokyo, leading up to the G20 Summit and the Joint Session of Health and Finance Ministers on 28th June 2019. In the summit, the G20’s top health and health financing experts urged G20 government Leaders, Health and Finance Ministers to significantly boost investment in the health of their citizens in order to promote sustainable economic development and inclusive growth.

Meeting in Tokyo on the eve of the Osaka G20 summit, the Health 20 Summit recognised that specific innovations in health are urgently required to help achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2030.  Health experts called for Innovative Financing initiatives (IFI) to be expanded and scaled up in order to help finance the research and development needed for the new diagnostics, vaccines and medicines required to tackle the growing problem of drug resistant diseases. Moreover, attendees called for a closer cooperation between health and finance authorities in the G20 to tackle some of the most pressing challenges faced by infectious and non-communicable diseases. The Health 20 Summit also urged the G20 Heads of State and Government to recognise the inter-dependency of the emerging global digital health ecosystem where a radical new multi-stakeholder approach is required by all governments in delivering their National Digital Health Strategies.

The summit was opened by H.E. Norikazu Suzuki, Parliamentary Vice-Minister for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan congratulating the cooperation of cross-sectoral health stakeholders. H.E. Ambassador Laurent Pic, Ambassador of France in Tokyo as well as Mr Kiya Masahiko, Deputy Assistant Minister of the International Cooperation Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged the importance of financing of health innovation and the achievement of SGD3 Goals.

Alan Donnelly, Chair of the H20Summit and Convenor of the G20 Health & Development Partnership said: “Several G20 countries are already using innovative financing initiatives to fund this essential research, and it is for the G20 Heads of Government and Finance Ministers to agree to rapidly scale up and expand these new methods to help meet the funding deficit.”

Participants of the summit formulated a Call to Action https://www.ssdhub.org/japan-call-to-action/  that was jointly sent to G20 Governments ahead of the Osaka G20 Leaders’ Summit. The “Call to Action” was submitted to all G20 Heads of States, and Finance and Health Ministers prior to the G20 Summit and the Joint Session of Health and Finance Ministers on 28th June 2019.

The Health20 Summit is an annual platform, organised by The G20 Health and Development Partnership, that offers experts from across the health sectors to come together and discuss solutions for the most recent and future challenges that will halt the timely achievement of SDG3 by 2030. This year’s summit  brought together over 100 participants under the umbrella of SDG 17, to create more Partnership’s, that included senior representatives from the Japanese government, G20 Embassies in Tokyo, Product Development Partnerships, Public-Private Partnerships, NGOs, senior politicians from G20 countries, the private sector, pharmaceutical and academic institutions to explore new and innovative ways of funding research and development (R&D) and delivery in tackling the growing disease burden.

Call to ActionEvent GalleryLeaders Declaration

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G20 Partnership Report Launch “Healthy Nations – Sustainable Economies: How Innovation Can Better Ensure Health For All” in the UK House of Commons

London

5th March 2019

On 5th March 2019, 21 leading cross-sectoral global organisations, representing over 1,000 collaborators launched the report Healthy Nations – Sustainable Economies: How Innovation Can Better Ensure Health For All” in the UK House of Commons. The report was authored by Professor David L. Heymann MD, Head of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House.

We were grateful for the keynote remarks delivered by the renowned economist Lord Jim O’Neill and by Mr Takashi Okada, Minister Plenipotentiary at the Embassy of Japan, who spoke on behalf of the G20 Japanese Presidency. We were also honoured to count key health and finance experts and policy makers among our panellists, including Mrs Francesca Colombo, Head of Health Division at the OECD, Mrs Andrea Lucard, Executive Vice President of External Relations at Medicines for Malaria Venture, as well as Parliamentarians Alison McGovern MP and Stephen Twigg MP from the Labour Party and Conservative Nigel Evans MP.

The speakers discussed the content of the report, which highlights existing and new models for innovative technologies and financing mechanisms to address pressing global health challenges. Policy makers, health and finance experts, academics, business representatives and NGOs called for more cross-sectoral partnership models between the governments, the private sector and philanthropic organisations. With this report, the Partnership will pave the need to invest in human capital during the course of the G20 Presidency in Japan in 2019. 

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The Davos Panel: “360 Discussion on Innovative Financing – What’s New”

Davos

25th January 2019

Alan Donnelly, the Convener of the G20 Health and Development Partnership, participated at several meetings and events during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos, Switzerland during 24th – 25th January 2019 including on NDCs and financing mechanisms. Mr Donnelly participated as a panellist at the 360 Discussion on Innovative Financing.  An increase in the number and protracted nature of conflicts around the world has resulted in the need for innovation to fund humanitarian action. New sources of funding and investments that provide opportunity for sustained provision of relief, recovery, peacebuilding and economic prosperity are needed. This session looked at innovations around blended finance mechanisms, impact investing, private and public sectors partnerships, and other initiatives. Mr Donnelly discussed the preliminary findings and recommendations from the “Healthy Nations Sustainable Economies: How Innovation Can Better Ensure Health For All” Report with the different stakeholders at Davos. The stakeholders at Davos commended the recommendations devised by the Partnership for the upcoming report and looked forward to the full report in the future.

The Davos Panel: “Opportunities in Non-Communicable Diseases – How Can Innovative Finance Move the Needle on Global Health?”

Davos

24th January 2019

The Convener of the Partnership participated at the panel discussion on the Opportunities in Non-Communicable Diseases held in Davos on 24 January 2019. Participants at the panel discussed the need for innovative financing mechanisms for tackling NDCs. Participants at the panel discussed that non-communicable diseases in industrialised countries are estimated to cost the equivalent of a 10% tax on of gross domestic product (GDP), and spending on them is estimated to account for almost 60% of current health spending, approximately US$ 2,400 per person every year. Participants also discussed the OECD Report stating the of obesity alone which can reach almost 10%. Of particular concern is that mental health accounts for up to 14% of health spending – and the share is growing.

Roundtable Event: “Health 20: Policies for Innovation & Irreversible Progress”

Geneva

18th May 2018

The G20 Health and Development Partnership (G20 HDP) convened the roundtable in line with the focus of the Argentinian G20 Presidency and its Health Working Group (HWG) prioritising global health and existing global health threats in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The coalition of public-, private and research institutes gathered alongside public figures, international organisation representatives and diplomats ahead of the 71st World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva to discuss how the current Argentinian G20 Presidency can show continued leadership in global health involving PDP’s, the private sector, civil society, innovators, entrepreneurs, international organisations in addition to government representatives and research institutes, in order to ensure continuity of the German Presidency (2017) through the Argentinian G20 Presidency (2018) leading up to the Japanese G20 Presidency (2019) and beyond.

Speakers at the roundtable agreed that there is a need to develop effective diagnostics and technologies to identify and deal with the consequences of AMR. The issues associated with innovation and delivery related to diagnostics is a major challenge as there are limited mechanisms to transfer developed diagnostics to resource-constrained countries; and health systems of poorer countries often lack the adequate capacities and capabilities to manage these challenges.

Being aware of these health challenges, partner institutions at the roundtable introduced their best practice cases and economic models to combat some of the pertinent health crises of innovative funding models for health projects in developing and least developed countries. Additional examples of blended financing mechanisms and social enterprises were also shared. However, despite these excellent models, most health stakeholders still operate in silos, creating an “elephant in the room” that prevents them from having a bigger impact by creating partnerships and pooling their messages to policy makers at the highest level in a common language that could ensure a real impact on the regional, national and multilateral stage such as the G20. Following the identification of these problems, all stakeholders identified three domains during the event that are essential for a successful partnership under SDG17 and to provide better health for all under SDG 3 that leaves no one behind including: (1) the need to identify and list the aspects of global health challenges where it is possible for progress to be made within the coming five years; (2) the need to generate and record compelling evidence on economic rationale and the benefits of investing as well as the economic and social consequences of inaction; and (3) the need to generate economic models with concrete examples, are crucial imminent actions that the G20 partnership can add fundamental value to and promote during the Japanese G20 Presidency in 2019.

The roundtable proposed that they could assist the G20 process by providing Heads of Governments, Finance Ministers and Health Ministers with concrete examples that have been successfully implemented and which provide irrefutable evidence of the economic rationale and the benefits of investing in global health R&D and innovation and delivery as well as the economic and social consequences of inaction. The G20 HDP provided the G20 troika with exemplars of partnership initiatives that could be rolled out on a much wider scale in order to tackle the health burden.

The Recommendations and the Event Report can be found here (Event-report H20 Roundtable Geneva 18-May-1 ).

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Medicines that Lie

27th & 28th March 2018

The Harvard Global Health Institute, the UK-based Brazzaville Foundation and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have come together to highlight the growing public health crisis caused by the proliferation of substandard and falsified medicines and to call on the international community, starting with the World Health Assembly meeting in May, to make this issue a real priority on the global health agenda. Pauline Latham OBE MP, Member of the International Development Committee in the House of Commons provided a keynote remarks at the high-level reception on 27 March, “Medicines that Lie – A Deadly Public Health Crisis,” that was accompanied by a technical conference at the Wellcome Trust on 28th March 2018. Michael Deats, Group Lead at the World Health Organisation and the organisers Professor Ashish Jha, Director or Harvard Global Health Institute and David Richmond, CEO of the Brazzaville Foundation gave keynote remarks during the reception. The reception, co-sponsored by Sovereign Sustainability and Development, brought together leading global experts in health, law and security, as well as policymakers, regulators and pharmaceutical industry representatives from around the world to assess the current state of the problem and discuss the way forward.

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Working Session of the G20 Health and Development Partnership

UK House of  Commons

12th January 2018

During the Working Session of the G20 Health and Development Partnership in the UK House of Commons on January 12th 2017, Members of Parliament, global health PDPs, NGOs and Permanent Missions discussed together how best to proceed during the 2018 Argentinian G20 Presidency so that health would remain a focus in the G20 process. Following the confirmation by the Argentinian Presidency that they will be continuing the Health Track, we are looking forward to providing support to the Presidency over the course of this year.

As outlined in the attached event report, one of our main objectives with this Partnership is to use considerable network and flexibility to reach out to a wider multi-lateral constituency across the G7/G20, Commonwealth, Inter-parliamentary Union, OECD and others. With this cooperation we want to help to elevate a number of global health priorities through establishment and growth of political capital and embed the discussion across a number of financing and economic dimensions, similar to what has been achieved under the climate change agenda in recent times. 

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The B20 Health Conference

18th May 2017

Following our “G20 Global Health Innovation” roundtable discussions in Berlin on 28th April, we were honoured to be part of the B20 Health Conference on 18th May 2017 where our Executive Chairman Alan Donnelly highlighted the importance of a mutli-stakeholder cooperation between politicians, the private sector and public private partnerships as well as NGO’s in order to address the interrelated challenges of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), pandemic preparedness/ response and Poverty Related Neglected Diseases (PRNDs).

He joined Merck, CEPI and FIND in order to discuss ways to eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) by 2020. Sovereign Strategy welcomed the attendance of Dr. Hatchett (CEPI), Dr. Stormy-Annika Mildner (B20), Dr. Harald Nusser (Novartis) and many other high-level attendees, at both our G20 Global Health Innovation event and the B20 Health Conference. We are grateful to the B20 and its Health Initiative for this inspiring conference and the convergence, in several areas, between our Initiative and the B20.

We are appreciative of the impact that our “G20 Global Health Innovation” roundtable discussions and our Call to Action had on the final G20 Health Ministers Declaration. We welcome the good result that health will feature prominently in the high-level recommendations for an upgraded G20 partnership with Africa and specifically with countries that are part of the G20 Compact with Africa.

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Research for Impact and the G20: “How can global health innovation drive sustainable development?”

Roundtable Event

28th April 2017

The “Research for Impact and the G20: How can global health innovation drive sustainable development?” roundtable event, held on Friday 28th April 2017 at the Quadriga Forum in Berlin, Germany was organised by Sovereign Strategy and co-hosted with the following organisations: the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance), Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), the Sabin Vaccine Institute, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), PATH (Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health), the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund, UNITAID and CARB-X.

The one-day event involved opening and closing speeches, two sessions of moderated roundtable discussions, presentations on the G20 priority foci of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and pandemic preparedness, the B20 and its health initiative as well as the Call to Action output document and discussions on how to carry the initiative forward. The relevance of the G20 was consistently highlighted, as were calls for the G20 to continue this priority focus, building on investments and current models in the global health space. In addition to increased financial investments, coordination platforms for research and development (R&D), data sharing or complimentary technologies were used as possible areas that should be considered going forward. The relevance of this dialogue to economic development and security gave additional credence to the G20 maintaining this focus particularly when framed in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which is now an explicit driver of the G20 prioritisation process.

Maintaining a focus on the political – in addition to the scientific – aspects of global health was emphasised with the political figures present at the Berlin roundtable highlighting the need to embed government involvement in global health and innovation into the domestic political discourse. Related to this were the exchanges and comments on improving communication and significantly broadening the base of advocates (including global parliamentary champions) outside of the traditional areas of operation, using smaller – but more regular – conduits of information and facts on impact that are compelling and show value for money. These political and communicative aspects combine d with the need to embrace long-term approaches were reflected in broad support for the initiative and its continuation as a way of stimulating a broader multi – stakeholder coalition of advocates and a platform for creating innovative partnerships.

The recommendations for G20 Health Ministers and Leaders drafted by the co-sponsors and supporters of the initiative were included in a “Call to Action” and an “Open Letter to G20 Leaders”. Through the roundtable and dialogue with the Official Engagement Groups, the Partnership was able to position itself as a unique forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue. The acknowledgement and involvement from key players involved in the G20 process as well as our contribution together with co-sponsors to ensuring a successful B20 Health Initiative established a solid foundation to move the initiative ahead. We have received very supportive messages from G20 officials – the government of Canada, the United Kingdom as well as Germany and EU Commissioner for Health & Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis – welcoming our efforts and that health should be a crucial focus on the G20 agenda.

Event ReportCall To ActionEvent SummaryEvent Gallery

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