Ms Helen Evans Interim Chief Executive Officer, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI); Dr Michel Kazatchkine Executive Director, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM); Ms Tamar Manuelyan Atinc Vice President, Human Development Network, World Bank; Dr Tachi Yamada President, Global Health Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Dr Margaret Chan Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO); UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé; Mr Anthony Lake Executive Director, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); Mr Babatunde Osotimehin Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The Health 8 group gathered at the UNAIDS Headquarters in Geneva on Wednesday 23 February to reflect and strategize on one of most pressing issues affecting the health of the world’s population—maximizing health outcomes with available resources.
The Geneva meeting, convened in this occasion by UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, focused on how to get “more health for the money.” Participants held discussions under three main topics: the UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for women’s and children’s health, the role of multilateralism in the new economic order, and the provision of technical support for capacity building.
The Health 8 (H8) is an informal group of eight health-related organizations comprising WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS, GFATM, GAVI, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Bank. It was created in mid-2007 to stimulate a global sense of urgency for reaching the health-related Millennium Development Goals and has focused on better ways to speed up efforts to bring lifesaving-health improvements to people worldwide.
