Innovation to reach the MDGs
Summit highlights how research can help reach global health targets
This week, nearly 200 world leaders will meet in New York to attend a high-level United Nations summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed at reducing disease, poverty, and hunger by 2015. The summit provides a key opportunity to highlight how a commitment to research and innovation can help reach the MDGs, and several events will showcase how developing new and innovative health tools can reduce the burden of disease worldwide.
Coalition and member engagement
Several members of the Global Health Technologies Coalition—the Global Health Council, PATH, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America—and other groups co-hosted a panel session entitled, "Looking back and looking ahead: What will it take to reach the health MDGs?" Panelists at the session addressed the need for continued investments in research for new tools in order to reach the health-related MDGs. They also spoke about the pivotal role that research and development of new tools will play as the international community looks beyond the 2015 MDG deadline and to the importance of ensuring introduction, delivery, and scale up of new interventions to ensure universal access.
The Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development—a coalition of 61 national governments, international organizations, and civil society groups—will host an event on Tuesday, September 21, to showcase the significant contributions from innovative financing toward progress on the MDGs. The event will highlight how innovative financing can help reach MDG targets, by spurring research and development for new global health tools for example. It will provide an overview of newly proposed mechanisms and feature discussions about the essential role of innovative financing in meeting the MDGs and longer-term development goals beyond the 2015 deadline.
Science, technology, and innovation forum
On Wednesday, September 22, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the New York Academy of Sciences will sponsor a "Science, Technology, and Innovation Forum." This invite-only event builds on the momentum generated from USAID's conference—"Transforming Development through Science, Technology and Innovation"—that was held earlier this year in Washington, DC. These two events are intended to reach out to others in the US Government, the private sector, foundations, and universities to highlight the use of science, technology, and innovation to solve the toughest development challenges of this century.
Investments in developing the next generation of new global heath tools have the potential to save millions of lives and alleviate the health, social, and economic burden of diseases. Research, science, and innovation for global health have the potential to transform societies and save lives worldwide well into the future. Supporting the crucial efforts to develop new health tools can help ensure that the most effective solutions for global health are available to help meet the MDGs and tackle health challenges beyond 2015.
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