The Task Force for Global Health has received a new grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve public health campaigns over the next three years, helping countries protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and provide Vitamin A supplements and other health services.
This $5 million grant builds on a previous grant of $8.2 million awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2020 to establish the Health Campaign Effectiveness (HCE) Coalition and the HCE Program Office at The Task Force for Global Health.
The HCE Coalition brings together global and country leaders, donors, multilateral organizations, and NGOs from several large-scale health campaign domains (e.g., vaccine-preventable diseases, neglected tropical diseases, malaria, and vitamin A supplementation) in a global partnership to enhance the efficiency, impact and health systems strengthening potential of large-scale public health campaigns and to integrate such efforts. The Task Force hosts the HCE Program Office, which provides programmatic and secretariat support to the Coalition, including strategy development, convening, advocacy, partnership engagement and knowledge synthesis/management.
This new grant will support the HCE Leadership Team and Coalition partners to co-develop a Collaborative Action Strategy (CAS) for Campaign Effectiveness. This five-year strategy will provide a framework to guide global health organizations, programs, and governments to a future state where programs collaborate effectively with each other and corresponding health services to maximize the impact of campaigns on health outcomes.
“We’re really excited about the next phase of the HCE Coalition to support countries and global and local partners to come together to develop and implement the CAS,” said Dr. Kristin Saarlas, HCE Coalition Director. “Since the Coalition launched, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been a platform where new ways of working together can be discussed and where solutions to shared problems can be tested. Over the past few years, the HCE Coalition supported a number of country-led implementation research studies that surfaced promising collaborative and integrated approaches to planning and implementing campaigns that can be applied more broadly going forward.”
The HCE Coalition plays a facilitative role in promoting improved global campaign guidance, policies, and the adoption of evidence-based practices and approaches that will improve campaign quality and effectiveness in countries. The new grant will enable the Task Force’s HCE Program Office to enhance its ability to convene partners, increase awareness and adoption of promising campaign practices, and strengthen its knowledge management platform.
“Global health campaigns have been phenomenally important in the fight against diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and river blindness, and in ensuring access for all people to critically needed vaccines and nutritional supplements,” said Task Force CEO Dr. Patrick O’Carroll. “But that doesn’t mean that the approach has always been perfect. The visionary leaders of the Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition are literally changing the way health campaigns are done: to facilitate cross-campaign learning and – importantly – to ensure that countries are strengthened in their capacity to engage with global campaigns to maximize the health impact for their people.”
The Coalition welcomes questions and inquiries and invites people to sign up for its newsletter and connect with their team to learn more. For more information, visit https://campaigneffectiveness.org/
