This Wonkcast was originally recorded in September 2012. In this austere budget climate, generating “value for money” (VFM) is a top concern for global health funding agencies and their donors, who want the biggest bang for their buck in terms of lives saved and diseases controlled. To this e...

This week the Global Fund Board will determine whether to “expand, accelerate, terminate or suspend the Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria (AMFm).” Ideally, the Board would make an evidence-based decision. However, both the sufficiency and the relevance of available technical evidence have been...

This is a joint post with Heather Lanthorn. The Global Fund Board’s decision over the Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria (AMFm) rapidly approaches, and tensions within the malaria community are acute. In her global health blog for The Guardian, Sarah Boseley characterizes the rift as one...

As the Global Fund’s November board meeting approaches – where the future of the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria (AMFm) hangs in the balance – there is much anxiety that AMFm will be terminated in 2013. The reason for such anxiety is clear: no donors have pledged funding commitments for af...

One year ago, the United Nations held a high-level meeting on non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention and control that culminated in a General Assembly Resolution 66/2 to adopt a 13-page “political declaration” to “address the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases worldwide.” The eve...

UNITAID: maybe you’ve heard of it, or maybe not. Launched in 2006, UNITAID has lived in the shadow of its older and bigger global-health siblings (the Global Fund, GAVI, and PEPFAR, to name a few). Perhaps due to its relative obscurity and late entry to a crowded global-health field, UNITAID has pro...