10 and 11 April 2008, Basel, Switzerland

Background

As this picture illustrates (Source: Jon Cohen, The New World of Global Health, in: Science, vol. 311, 13 January 2006), an increasing number of stakeholder and stakeholder groups are involved in supporting the development of health infrastructure and the improvement of the health status, in particular in developing countries. This is primarily the result of a growing amount of funds being made available for health related projects notably from private sources.

This increasing influx of funds into the health sector is clearly most welcome to assist in solving some of the world’s most pressing health concerns. However, given the rapid development and the enormous flow of funds from new actors and stakeholder groups from the non-government sector also brings up a number of new challenges. Issues raised in this context, for instance, relate to the planning of health programs vs public programs, or coordination, sustainability, efficiency and accountability.

Objective of conference

The conference on ‘Philanthropy in Global Health – Governance and Effectiveness Criteria’ planned by the Basel Institute on Governance allowed participants to gain a comprehensive understanding of these new paradigms of the world health situation, in particular with respect to developing countries, and to discuss the issues and potential problems raised above. The conference brought together experts from a variety of disciplines to discuss the matters at stake from a humanitarian/development politics perspective, from the view point of the private sector including with due regard to investment relevant concerns, as well as from the perspective of regulators and in consideration of global governance matters. Participants and experts included economists, lawyers, social and political scientists as well as representatives and policy makers from the private sector, foundations and recipient countries.