Report documents shifts in global health, development investments

"The face of international aid for health and development is changing," NPR's "Shots" blog reports, adding, "Less money is now coming from wealthy, industrialized nations and more is flowing from private foundations, corporations and even countries that only a few years ago were recipients themselves." Though the U.S. government remains the largest donor worldwide, "over the last decade, other players have been elbowing their way into the global aid and development world," the blog writes, noting stakeholders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, corporate donors including Pfizer, Merck, Exxon and Unilever, and emerging market countries. The blog notes a new report, released this week, "on the changing philanthropic environment around global health" and includes comments from Marshall Stowell of Population Services International (PSI), one of the report authors (Beaubien, 4/4).

Devex discusses "a spirited conversation among global health experts Tuesday" in Washington, D.C., which "served to launch the 'Report on Global Giving: A New Era of Philanthropy and Investment in Global Health,' prepared by PSI and Devex in partnership with Fenton Communications." The news service recaps the conversation, which included PSI President and CEO Karl Hofmann; David Ferreira, managing director for innovative finance at the GAVI Alliance; Jim Jones, ExxonMobil's manager of community interests; Jeanette Vega, managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation; David Gold, principal at Global Health Strategies; Liz Schrayer, executive director of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition; Ariel Pablos-Mendez, assistant administrator for global health at USAID; Caroline Roan, vice president of corporate responsibility at Pfizer Inc. and president of the Pfizer Foundation; and Wendy Taylor, director of USAID's Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact (Rosenkrantz, 4/4).