Daily Maverick: Op-Ed: Decisions in the Dark? Global Health Financing in the Post-Aid Era
Julia Greenberg, director of the Global Health Financing Initiative at the Open Society Foundations

“…Questions about how to fill the funding gap left by the withdrawal of foreign assistance for health are gaining prominence among donors, civil society actors, and the private sector. … Discussions at the AIDS conference would benefit from some healthy reflection on whether public-private partnerships and other modes of blended finance are indeed the ‘magic bullets’ in the next wave of health financing that some purport them to be. … [H]ealth policies should be set by those most affected, not negotiated between governments and their investment partners. It is that foundation that we stand to lose if conversations about public health decisions are moved out of public spaces, if donors rather than recipients of aid regain control of the agenda. In 2016 and onward, we need to open up the debate about donor withdrawal from middle-income countries, exploring roles for governments, donors, civil society, and the private sector that would advance human rights and preserve and build on the gains of the global HIV response. It would be a breakthrough for the AIDS movement to come up with minimum human rights standards for innovative financing approaches and public-private partnerships in health…” (7/20).