Governance and Financing of Global Public Health: The Post-2015 Agenda

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) aimed to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, improve child and maternal health, combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, promote gender equality, and enhance the governance of development by means of financial reforms benefitting heavily indebted poor countries. The current global economic crisis also threatens future progress given that fiscal constraints are already jeopardizing the realization of the MDGs. In this paper, the authors examine some of the larger shifts in the governance and financing of global public health and their ramifications for post-2015 progress. In particular, the authors look at the rise of the emerging economies, the move towards multi-bi financing, the proliferation of health institutions, the demographic shift, and finally the growing movement towards universal health coverage as the focal point of post-2015 efforts.