2024 marks The Task Force’s 40th anniversary! Throughout this year our Dispatches newsletter is shining a spotlight on people, partners and programs who have contributed to 40 years of impact. This month we highlight The Task Force in the 2010s.
In the 2010s, The Task Force boosted its expertise with two new programs focused on eliminating diseases, three new vaccine initiatives and three new programs that help countries strengthen health systems. The Task Force was also awarded the Hilton Humanitarian Prize by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation in 2016 and in 2019 was granted “non-State actor status” by the WHO.
In the disease elimination portfolio, The Task Force took on the role as secretariat of the Global Program for Zero Leprosy (2018-2023) and launched the Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination (2019), helping governments plan, implement and evaluate programs to eliminate hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus transmission and disease.
New vaccine initiatives included a 2013 public/private partnership targeting influenza and other respiratory viruses and building national and global capacity to respond to pandemics and other epidemic threats. The program known as PIVI (Partnership for International Vaccine Initiatives) works with CDC, ministries of health, corporate partners and others to create sustainable respiratory virus vaccination programs in low- and middle-income countries, and it served as a foundation for rolling out COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. Two other vaccine programs joined in 2019. The Brighton Collaboration is a global network of 1,300 vaccine safety experts supporting vaccine safety and research through standardized and validated methods for monitoring vaccine safety. Voices for Vaccines builds peer-to-peer networks and develops materials that enable parents to make informed decisions by equipping them to have constructive conversations about vaccines and the diseases they prevent. These programs are housed in The Task Force’s Center for Vaccine Equity, established in 2011.
Also in this timeframe The Task Force added three programs that help countries build strong health systems. The MedSurplus Alliance (2018) engages medical product donation partners to advance equitable access to health by providing quality medical products when and where needed. The FACE program (Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics), 2018, seeks to raise awareness, generate evidence, provide support and build capacity for compassionate and ethical global health practice, by conducting research and providing training on these topics. And the Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition (2019), supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, brings together partners working on large-scale health campaigns targeting diseases like measles, polio and NTD, such as country leaders, funders, multilateral organizations and NGOs – to increase efficiency and effectiveness of such campaigns.
In 2016, the organization was awarded the world’s largest humanitarian award – the $2-million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, presented to nonprofit organizations judged to have made extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering. Two years later, President Jimmy Carter called The Task Force “one of the most effective nongovernmental organizations in the country.”
In 2019, the WHO granted The Task Force a privilege known as “non-State actor status,” earned by nonprofits having sustained engagement with the WHO and contributing significantly to the advancement of public health.
That year, the organization moved into a six-story building in Decatur (neighboring Atlanta) to serve as its global headquarters, reflecting not only the growth of The Task Force – nearly 20 programs working in more than 150 countries – but the opportunity to do more.
