Global Health Strategy Background
Our Global Health Program focuses on the diseases and health conditions that significantly impact poor people in developing countries and get too little attention and funding. We believe that scientific and technological innovation will continue to transform global health. All of our
strategies look to apply the latest tools and technologies – or invent new ones – in order to improve and save lives.
We also have three strategies that span our global health program. These comprise discovering new tools and technologies and closing gaps in knowledge, delivering vaccines and other interventions at scale, and advocating for policies and resources to provide people with access to health solutions.
Each strategy team seeks extensive input from external advisors to make sure we are on target. As a part of our ongoing effort to seek the counsel of outside voices, the Global Health Program has a Program Advisory Panel of six distinguished experts with a range of experiences and perspectives. The panel works directly with our program president to offer independent, frank assessments of our strategies and to help us evaluate results.
Partnership
Achieving lasting change in health requires bringing together diverse groups, each with critical roles to play. A large portion of our grantmaking involves building and strengthening partnerships with organizations around the world, including governments, private companies, research institutes, and international and community organizations.
Our strategy documents represent the work we are doing in collaboration with our core partners. In many cases, there are other funders who are investing more than we are in a certain area. Although our resources are significant, they represent just a fraction of the overall funding and effort needed to address our priority issues.
We always look for ways to bring in other partners and to ensure the sustainability of projects beyond the life of a grant. Learn more about our grantmaking process.
Strategy Lifecycle
Our strategies typically cover three to five years. Each is on a different timetable for review, depending on when it was launched and which goals were initially set out. Some strategies, such as for HIV, have been in place for many years and will soon be refreshed. Others have been recently updated, such as our strategy for addressing maternal, neonatal and child health.
We annually review existing evidence for each strategy, evaluate the results of individual grants, and assess our role in relation to other donors and partners. We are creating common standards within the foundation to develop strategies and measure results, and are working on ways to more effectively evaluate our grantmaking internally. We also invest in independent evaluation of our strategies and of key issues in global health. We make sure to build in enough flexibility to adjust as evidence warrants or as opportunities present themselves.