WHA78 Side Event "Health Financing: What now? What next? Insights from malaria, dengue & Neglected Tropical Diseases
Location(s)
About the event
WHA78 Side Event: "Health Financing: What now? What next? Insights from malaria, dengue & Neglected Tropical Diseases"
Tuesday 20th May 2025, 8.00-10.00 CEST
Hotel Royal
Rue de Lausanne 41, 1201 Geneva, Switzerland
Co-Hosted by the Health Finance Coalition (HFC); Malaria No More; and the International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases (ISNTD)
Background and Context
The world is witnessing major shifts in the global health landscape. Among these, the decrease in donor funding for climate-sensitive infectious and tropical diseases on the one hand, and the explosive growth of health threats such as arboviruses including dengue, as well as the persistent threat of malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) on communities worldwide are likely to be among the most defining factors of future health policy.
Concurrently, climate change and human health have become inextricably linked. As per WHO, climate change is the ‘single biggest threat facing humanity,’ with studies showing that climatic hazards have exacerbated 58% of infectious diseases worldwide, highlighting the need for intensifying preventive actions [1]. Contributing factors include a wide and complex array of dynamics such as: rising temperature increases which create more favourable conditions for vectors of disease, like mosquitoes; more frequent and intense events, like floods, amplify health risks by contaminating drinking water supplies, resulting in outbreaks of waterborne diseases; climate-driven migration causing shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns impact food and water resources, which can disrupt livelihoods. As a result, diseases including malaria, dengue and NTDs diseases have been particularly exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. If unchecked, around 700 million more people could become vulnerable to malaria as a result of climate change [2], [3]. In the last two decades, the incidence of dengue fever has increased 10-fold, with now more than 4 billion people in 129 countries at risk of infection [4].
Despite significant gains and successes in global efforts to understand, monitor and respond to climate-vulnerable infectious and tropical diseases, significant and evolving funding gaps are now a major concern for eliminating these diseases. This is particularly concerning where substantial investments have already secured significant progress towards the control and elimination of diseases, which now face the real risk of being reversed. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns that reductions in global health financing could reverse decades of progress, particularly in malaria-endemic regions [5]. In the case of Neglected Tropical Diseases, millions of people in the poorest and most marginalized communities risk losing access to life-saving treatments without sustained funding; diseases such as trachoma and lymphatic filariasis which were close to elimination in certain regions could resurge. Continued investment in efforts to eliminate infectious and tropical diseases is essential for safeguarding global health and promoting regional and international economic prosperity and stability.
In response to these challenges, this WHA78 Side Event is looking to mobilize stakeholders to take stock of the current funding challenges as they evolve, share experiences and best practices, consider new resources, accelerate innovations, and scale up health system preparedness to combat climate-vulnerable infectious and tropical diseases with a focus on malaria, dengue and NTDs.
Event Objectives
This multi-speaker event on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly (WHA) will create a platform to share first-hand experiences of funding challenges, whether from the recipient or funder’s perspective, as well as discuss needs and new financing strategies or platforms in the wake of decreasing donor funding for climate-sensitive infectious and tropical diseases like malaria, dengue, and NTDs. The event will bring together voices from national governments, innovators, and investors seeking to work together, culminating in a call to action to address these challenges around the world.
Specific objectives include:
• Provide a stage for policy makers, government leaders, funders and technical experts to share the challenges that their countries, research or programs are facing
• Bring together governments, innovators, and investors to discuss opportunities and solutions to these challenges
• Catalyse discussions around solutions and best practices in order to issue a strong call to action on what is needed to sustain and accelerate health goals.
[1] Mora, C., McKenzie, T., Gaw, I.M. et al. Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 869–875 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01426-1
[2] https://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/quantitative-risk-assessment/en
[3] Climate change and the future of malaria | Malaria No More UK. (n.d.). https://malarianomore.org.uk/world-environment-day
[4] The Increasing Burden of Dengue Fever in a Changing Climate. 2022. Rockefeller Foundation. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/insights/perspective/the-increasing-burden-of-dengue-fever-in-a-changing-climate/#:~:text=While%20climate%20change%20is%20indeed,needs%20to%20be%20addressed%20today.
[5] Malaria progress in jeopardy amid foreign aid cuts. 11 April 2025. World Health Organization Departmental update. https://www.who.int/news/item/11-04-2025-malaria-progress-in-jeopardy-amid-foreign-aid-cuts