Health Financing: Unpacking Trends in ODA for Health — Webinar Recap

On September 2, GHC co-hosted a webinar with Action for Global Health (AfGH) on Official Development Assistance (ODA) and financing in global health. During the webinar, Marco Simonelli, Joachim Ruppel, and Tim Roosen from AfGH presented their report “Health Financing: Unpacking Trends in ODA for Health”, which analyzes and compares European donors’ economic capacity and potential for funding global health with their actual contributions to the sector.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a target that donor countries contribute 0.1% of their Gross National Income (GNI) to health ODA. Simonelli and Ruppel explained that few European countries are meeting this target. It is particularly important to look at the types of ODA coming out of each country – loans, given with the expectation that the money will be paid back are viewed differently than grants, given without the expectation that the money will be paid back – when considering how close they come to the WHO target.

By differentiating these two types of ODA, it becomes clear that the landscape of aid for global health is shifting, with the tendency to give loans increasing, especially in Germany, France, and Japan. The largest ODA contributors tend to rely on loans instead of grants now. Globally, the countries contributing the most to health issues are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. However, when looking at grants only, the leaders change to Luxembourg, Sweden, and Norway.

That said, only five countries have ever met the WHO target for ODA and global health. In 2013, the only major economy in Europe to achieve it was the UK. Notably, the Netherlands came close at 0.094%. You can see how other countries compare in Figure 7, below.

Simonelli and Ruppel explained that if all European donor countries reached the 0.1% GNI for health ODA, the resource gap, totaling approximately US$24 billion, would be closed by 2020.

A PDF of the slides presented during the session is available and includes hyperlinks of graphs and report visuals to allow you to fully explore these tools, like the one above, online.  Moreover, a summary of key takeaways and contact information of the presenters is included in the slide deck.

Stay tuned for more webinars from our Global Health Financing series!