By: Rebecca Ekpe
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its partners have announced a series of new initiatives to support local innovations at the Grand Challenges annual meeting in Dakar, Senegal. These investments are accompanied by an urgent call for increased funding to countries to make research and development (R&D) of health and development innovations simpler and faster. It would also ensure that the next generation of scientific and technological advances are relevant and accessible to all.
Data suggests that while R&D funding is increasing in health, only 2% of funds are going to fight diseases that affect the world’s poorest populations. In 2020, the funding gap for product development for diseases associated with poverty and neglected diseases was estimated at $2.6 billion.
“Over the past two decades, global investments in a range of innovative solutions have halved the number of deaths of children under the age of five,” says Moussa Balde, Senegal’s Minister of Higher Education. Research and Innovation. “But life-saving innovations still take too long to reach those who need them and are not always designed fairly from the start. Grand Challenges Senegal continues to invest in the country’s best scientists and innovators. We are pleased to be part of Grand Challenges’ international network of partners who invest in locally developed solutions to ensure that innovations in health, education and agriculture benefit everyone, equitably. »
Launched in 2003, Grand Challenges, the foundation’s flagship innovation program, focuses its efforts and funding on the most pressing global health and development issues affecting the world’s poorest. Grand Challenges regularly launches calls for proposals to develop solutions in a participatory manner.
In a speech to more than 1,400 scientists, policymakers and donors attending the annual meeting, Bill Gates, co-chairman of the Gates Foundation, called on the world to spend at least $3 billion more per year for R&D in global health and development, to fill the funding gap in the fight against neglected diseases.
“New health technologies have the potential to save millions of lives, but R&D funding is going in the wrong direction,” said Bill Gates. “Donors must do more to ensure that health innovations reach those who need them and save more lives, faster. »
Bill Gates announced that the foundation will invest $30 million to fund a new artificial intelligence (AI) platform in Africa. This will provide African scientists and innovators with the technical and operational support they need so that their ideas can lead to health and development solutions that can be deployed on a large scale. This is another important step to ensure that the benefits of AI are relevant, affordable and accessible for all, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and that these critical tools are developed in a way that is safe, ethical and fair. The foundation will continue to work closely with technical partners and public authorities to evolve the platform and identify how to jointly advance the use of AI for health and development.
The foundation also announced new investments to expand access to a new messenger RNA vaccine manufacturing platform that will provide countries like Senegal and South Africa with the technology to develop and manufacture their own vaccines . Messenger RNA technology has the potential to revolutionize the fight against various infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and Lassa fever which disproportionately affect populations in LMICs. This new vaccine manufacturing capacity will help LMICs develop low-cost, high-quality vaccines to meet their most pressing health priorities.
“What began as a single program funded by the Gates Foundation and its partners has evolved into a family of initiatives and partnerships spanning national borders, fields of study and sectors that are catalyzing research, products, and partnerships to save and improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people,” said Kedest Tesfagiorgis, deputy director, global partnerships and Grand Challenges at the foundation.
“Our community of innovators proves that a great idea can come from anywhere and be supported by the funders, decision-makers and policy change advocates needed to bring it to the lab and ultimately, to the people on whom it will have the most impact .
Grand Challenge is supported by the governments of India, China, Brazil, the United States and Canada, as well as a growing number of countries in Africa, including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Senegal and the ‘South Africa.
Since 2003, partners have invested $1.6 billion to support more than 3,800 projects in 118 countries: designing new strategies to improve gut health in mothers and children, reinventing toilets to improve sanitation, and even imagining a new approach to discovering drugs against malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases.