Devex: Global Fund chief on COVID-19 funding, global health security
“Global COVID-19 response efforts need a bolder response, health financing remains difficult, and the way global health security is defined needs to change, according to Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, or ACT Accelerator, is still short of the funding it needs. What’s needed is the ‘kind of boldness of response’ that wealthy countries have shown in their domestic spending when it comes to accelerating the development of new tools and ensuring equitable access to them, Sands said in an interview at Devex World…” (Saldinger, 12/10).

Devex: World Bank hopes to help get vaccines to 1 billion people, Malpass says
“Providing fair and equitable access to vaccines will be key to managing the health and economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, World Bank President David Malpass told Devex in an interview at Devex World. Speaking about the efforts of the bank until now and plans for the months to come, Malpass said the focus will be to provide vaccines to people who don’t have any other way to get them…” (Byatnal, 12/10).

Devex: Mark Green: Next administration should address ‘fragmentation’ in foreign aid
“The U.S. Agency for International Development is the ‘only entity’ in the U.S. government that has the capability to lead on an international response to COVID-19, according to Mark Green, executive director at the McCain Institute for International Leadership and former administrator at USAID. ‘We can’t conquer this pandemic simply by focusing here at home. We’ll always be vulnerable. … USAID, with its fantastic field presence, is the only entity that I think can help get that job done,’ he told Devex Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar at Devex World on Thursday…” (Igoe, 12/10).

Devex: Ditch the jargon to save development, says Rory Stewart
“Development professionals must ‘break out of jargon’ in order to ‘save this field,’ according to the former U.K. secretary of state for international development. In an interview for Devex World, Rory Stewart said excessive jargon makes it difficult to communicate with citizens about aid and to discuss the details of programming. ‘If we are to save this field we must break out of jargon and rhetoric and universal solutions and theories and focus on the quality of delivery on the ground,’ Stewart said in the interview with Raj Kumar, Devex’s president and editor-in-chief…” (Worley, 12/10).