Working Groups

UNAIDS Transition

As the founding executive director of UNAIDS prepares to step down at the end of 2008, CGD and the Economic Governance Programme of Oxford University have convened an expert Working Group to develop recommendations for the incoming leadership of UNAIDS, the Programme Coordinating Board and other stakeholders. The final report is available online.
[October 2008 - March 2009]

Private Sector Advisory Facility

The private health sector constitutes a large and growing portion of developing country health systems, accounting for between 50 and 80 percent of utilization and expenditures. But governments and donors focus nearly all of their attention and resources on the public sector, thereby overlooking valuable opportunities to strengthen private healthcare providers' contributions to better health. The Center for Global Development has convened the Private Sector Advisory Facility Working Group to identify mechanisms for establishing policies and programs that can help the private sector to play a more meaningful role in improving health care for poor people in developing countries.
[August 2008 - Present]

Drug Resistance

CGD convened the Drug Resistance Working Group to identify practical and feasible ways that the global donor community could prevent or reduce the emergence of drug resistance against AIDS, TB, malaria, and other illnesses in developing countries. In addition to shedding light on country similarities, the Working Group will develop a common solution framework that can be brought to bear based on the risk factors for resistance across treatments for major diseases and thus will draw on examples and lessons from experience with treatment for HIV/AIDs, malaria, TB, and microbial infections.
[November 2007 - Present]

IMF-Supported Programs and Health Expenditures

The Working Group on IMF-Supported Programs and Health Expenditures investigated how macroeconomic policies under IMF programs in low-income countries interacted with the management of health spending in a context of scaled-up aid. Utilizing case studies and cross-country comparisons, the working group explored the evidence on what actually happened under IMF programs on the key issues where the IMF role has been criticized. The group concluded with six recommendations for the IMF as well as lessons for other stakeholders.
[October 2006 – June 2007]

Performance-Based Incentives

The Working Group on Performance-Based Incentives was convened to examine how the use and quality of essential health services for the poor can be affected by performance-based incentives. Building upon a growing body of evidence, the Working Group will explore how these innovations are working, how they are affecting (or could affect) the broader health system, and if and how they can be used to change key health-related behaviors.
[February 2006 – Present]

Global Health Forecasting

The Global Health Forecasting Working Group was convened to study the challenges surrounding demand forecasting for essential medical technologies. The group concluded that better forecasting requires wider sharing of the risks involved in producing drugs among those who influence market dynamics, and aligning incentives through three mutually reinforcing actions: 1) improving the capacity to develop credible forecasts by taking forecasting seriously; 2) mobilizing and sharing information about product demand in a coordinated way through the establishment of an infomediary; and 3) adopting a set of contractual arrangements. These recommendations are presented in the Working Group’s final report, A Risky Business: Saving Money and Improving Global Health through Better Demand Forecasts.
[February 2006 – May 2007]

Global Health Indicators

The Global Health Indicators Working Group examined potential measures of a government's commitment to health with the goal of identifying and recommending a set of indicators for consideration by the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation and other donors as they assess country eligibility for investment. The group's findings are presented in detail in the new report, Measuring Commitment to Health.
February 2006 – August 2006

Evaluation Gap

The Evaluation Gap Working Group was convened to understand why good impact evaluation of development programs is in short supply. Focusing on health, education and social sectors, the Working Group identified what would be required to ensure that the business of development includes learning what works and what doesn't. The Working Group's recommendations to solve the problem of the evaluation gap are presented in a final report, When Will We Ever Learn? Improving Lives through Impact Evaluation.
[September 2004 – May 2006]

Global Health Resource Tracking

The Global Health Resource Tracking Working Group identified the lack of timely, accurate data about spending on health services and public health programs as serious constraints on good policymaking and effective use of limited resources in developing countries. More information about what resources are expected - from whom, and for what purpose - and better tracking of how those funds have been spent will allow policy leaders, advocates and analysts to more effectively raise additional resources and allocate them toward the populations and types of services that are vital to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The Working Group’s final report, Following the Money: Toward Better Tracking of Global Health Resources, calls for: coherent and long-term support to improve government budgetary and financial systems in the developing world; standard approaches to documenting and analyzing health sector expenditures; and more timely, predictable and forward looking data on external assistance to the health sector.
[July 2004 – May 2007]

Advance Market Commitment

The Advance Market Commitment Working Group examined how donors could accelerate the development of vaccines for diseases concentrated in developing countries by guaranteeing to pay for such vaccines if and when they are created and introduced. A well structured binding commitment could create incentives for firms to invest in R&D with the confidence that there would be a market for a successful product. The Working Group’s report Making Markets for Vaccines: Ideas to Action takes the proposal from theory to practice, with a detailed explanation of how an advance market commitment could be designed within the existing legal and budgetary framework, and example term sheets that demonstrate the legal instruments that could be used. [March 2003 – April 2005]

What Works?

The What Works? Working Group sought to identify, analyze and document large implementation successes in global health. The Working Group closely examined major public health successes in developing countries – programs that used cost-effective interventions and had a large, positive impact on health conditions that could be attributed to the programs’ activities. The Working Group identified the factors contributing to the successes, and the commonalities across them. These included: adequate and long-term funding, the existence of political champions, technical consensus, innovative technologies and delivery approaches, good management and effective use of information. The working group’s findings are featured in the CGD publication Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health.
[February 2003 – December 2004]

Global Health Policy Research Network