Abstract
Background
Tracking availability and use of health sector resources is critical for policymakers and programme managers. This can be challenging in the health sector, particularly where there are multiple external financial channels. Given the known risks and burden to health services due to fragmentation of health financing, external partners have a responsibility to ensure coordination at both country and global level to enable more efficient and effective allocation and use of external health sector resources against priority health-related targets. Such coordination can be more challenging during responses to health emergencies or rapidly changing health priorities.
Research question or aim
The aim was to continuously track, document and report external financing for COVID-19 vaccine delivery in LMICs. The presentation will focus on discussing lessons learned from this effort.
Methods
The recent example of donor coordination in relation to support to deliver COVID-19 vaccines provides several valuable lessons that can inform the establishment and management of future pandemic or health emergency financial coordination. UNICEF has played a central role in both mobilizing and coordinating donor resources to support COVID-19 vaccine delivery across low-and-middle income counties. This was made possible through the conceptualization and realization of a global, top-down, resource tracking system – the COVID-19 Vaccine Financial Monitoring (C19VFM) database. This exercise focused on ensuring timely information to inform the equitable distribution of external resources across countries, according to urgent, short and medium-term funding needs. Given the time sensitivity and fluid parameters of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine response, the C19VFM exercise followed a pragmatic approach to global resource tracking. Data frameworks, collection methods and reporting requirements were designed to facilitate ease of reporting for donors and development partners to allow for more frequent updates and closer monitoring.
Key results
As of 22 November 2022, the C19VFM has recorded the commitment of US$ 4.6 billion to support COVID-19 vaccine delivery efforts across 138 LMICs from 35 external partners, as well as monitoring disbursement of these funds. Beyond the comprehensiveness and coverage of the financial tracking, the value has been driven by organizational factors related to implementation and application. Resource tracking efforts that are embedded within the governance structures of donor coordination groups offer benefits to all stakeholders in facilitating informed decision making, strengthening the case for participation in activities such as identifying relevant financing sources, engaging relevant organizations, and facilitating data sharing agreements.
Implications for policy and practice
The experience in the design, application and evolution of C19VFM, which provides a key perspective on the factors that can facilitate or constrain the success and practicality of global resource tracking in relation to health emergency and pandemic response. As the governance structures for pandemic, preparedness and response (PPR) are realized, the lessons learned from the C19VFM provide important insights on technical, organizational and operational elements of global resource tracking that can be applied to ensure future exercises can effectively harmonize donor funding and support strengthening of national health systems and service delivery.