|
Presented by Children's Investment Fund Foundation | Without USAID, who is funding the fight against Ebola?
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
Speaking at Devex Impact House on the sidelines of this week’s World Health Assembly, or WHA79, Zipline Africa CEO blamed NGO systems for crowding out private health innovation. But critics warn dismantling existing networks could weaken crisis response. 
|
Upcoming event: On Tuesday, May 26, we’ll have a Devex Pro Funding Briefing with Hania Tabet, managing director of the Airbus Foundation, to find out what the foundation offers in addition to money, and why some partners prefer it. |
The aid market fight
Zipline Africa CEO Caitlin Burton came to Devex Impact House with a very sharp diagnosis: If private sector health innovation is not scaling in lower-income countries, blame the aid architecture. “The biggest barrier to private sector scaling in any way that provides public benefit is that the market has been cornered by NGOs, and donors are paying for that,” she said on the sidelines of WHA79 in Geneva. “We didn’t understand how hard it would be — that it would be the donor sector trying to get us to stop.” Her argument is that donors have built a system that leaves little room for companies trying to solve public health problems at scale — with advisers embedded in ministries and funding flowing through familiar NGO channels rather than to the private sector. That critique lands in a charged moment. The Trump administration has gutted USAID and held up Zipline’s $150 million pay-for-performance grant as a model for the kind of aid it wants to fund. Critics, meanwhile, warn that dismantling donor-backed networks can leave countries dangerously exposed — as the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is already testing. Burton did not weigh in on USAID directly. But she is clearly bullish on the shake-up. “This new era is really wonderful, because governments are thinking about things really differently now,” she said. “They’re trying to actually attract a marketplace of doers, instead of what somebody else is willing to pay for.” Ahead of WHA79, we asked 11 global health movers and shakers, including Burton, what the sector needs to do to meet this moment. “We need to stop funding subscale, subpar ‘free’ services that undermine governments and distort local markets. Too often, these models rely on layers of intermediaries, drive cost overruns, and create dependency rather than capability,” she told us. “Systems should be designed to operate independently, not indefinitely rely on external support.” Read: Zipline Africa CEO says NGOs ‘cornered’ the market  Background reading: Global health in 2026 — hard truths from 11 leaders See also: Is Zipline the future of US global health assistance?
|
|
A Message from Children's Investment Fund Foundation
Announcing The Next Frontier: Reimagining Financing for Development and Growth As the Global Partnerships Conference neared, Devex and the Children's Investment Fund Foundation launched The Next Frontier, a series exploring the shift toward a pluralistic financing landscape where country-led growth and private capital take center stage. Dive into curated essays and opinion articles featuring voices charting a new era of agency and lasting impact. |
|
Race against time
The latest Ebola outbreak in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo is a nightmare scenario: a rare strain of the virus, more than 100 deaths, already spread across at least one border — and no approved vaccines or therapies.
In an opinion piece for Devex, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance CEO Dr. Sania Nishtar and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations CEO Dr. Richard Hatchett lay out the playbook: test whether the existing Ebola Zaire vaccine offers any cross-protection, fast-track candidates specific to the rare Bundibugyo strain, and make sure the basics are in place — health workers, cold chains, community engagement, and the operational machinery needed for trials or rollout in an active conflict zone. The good news is that some tools already exist. Gavi has an Ebola vaccine stockpile, plus rapid financing mechanisms that can front-load money in a crisis. CEPI and Gavi can also help de-risk vaccine development so manufacturers do not wait until the outbreak is further out of control. But the authors are clear-eyed: Vaccines alone will not stop this. “We owe it to the health workers and contact tracers battling to contain the disease to demonstrate that our interconnectedness and our solidarity are the sources of our strength,” they write. Speaking onstage at Devex Impact House during WHA79 on Wednesday, Nishtar went into detail on Gavi’s reform process — which amounts to a radical simplification to help countries where paperwork pileup was getting in the way of health programming. The vaccine alliance is cutting 30 funding levers down to two, shrinking contracts from 700 to about 60, and digitizing grant processes to ease the administration burden on both countries and Gavi itself. “Yesterday was a proof of the pudding … minister after minister came and said … ‘this is what we wanted, we wanted authority to be delegated to us,’” Nishtar said. Gavi wants countries moving faster toward financing their own vaccine programs, with copayments rising alongside income. Eighteen countries have already graduated from Gavi support — and more are expected to follow. The Trump administration has proposed cutting funding for Gavi, but the alliance has still secured $10 billion of the $11.9 billion it needs for 2026–2030, including from former recipient countries such as India and Indonesia. Nishtar called that “a huge testament to the trust that donors have in Gavi.” Opinion: Collaboration will be key in race for vaccine to control rare Ebola strain Read and watch: Gavi’s CEO says radical reform push is winning over health ministries  Read all the latest reporting from WHA79 and our Devex Impact House sessions, and watch this space for a WHA wrap-up newsletter hitting your inbox soon.
|
|
Produced in Partnership: MSD for Mothers
The power of tech in transforming Nigeria’s maternal health care
With the world’s worst maternal mortality rate, Nigeria is turning to digital solutions. Devex talks to key implementers on the ground about a digital and community-based approach to strengthening maternal care. |
|
Calling the shots
Meanwhile, CEPI got a fresh infusion of cash to come up with new vaccines quickly.
The European Union pledged €73.7 million ($85.4 million) for 2026–2027, while Singapore added $12 million, backing CEPI’s push to develop vaccines against new viral threats within 100 days. The coalition’s next five-year strategy, CEPI 3.0, comes with a much bigger price tag: $3.6 billion. The Gates Foundation did not announce new money, but Chris Elias, its president for global development, signaled support is coming. “We will make a commitment at the right time and place, because we see CEPI 3.0 as a critical piece of preparing us for the inevitability of pandemics to come.” For Hatchett, the CEO of CEPI, the message is simple: The world is still underprepared. Both the Ebola outbreak and the recent spate of hantavirus infections, he says, “serve as stark reminders that the gap between the threats we face and our readiness to meet them remains dangerously wide.” Read: EU, Singapore pledge nearly $100M for CEPI amid fresh Ebola outbreak |
|
Put to the test
The U.S. State Department says it is also making moves against the Ebola outbreak, working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, activating an Ebola Task Force, deploying a Disaster Assistance Response Team, and putting up $23 million for surveillance, lab capacity, and other support. It also plans to fund up to 50 treatment clinics, largely through the Central Emergency Response Funds vehicle managed by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Its “first priority,” the department says, is “the protection of Americans and the American homeland.”
But the politics are already fierce, Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger tells me. “This is the first major Ebola outbreak in a post-USAID world, and we are seeing the disastrous consequences of the Trump administration’s reckless dismantling of the systems that protect Americans and prevent deadly diseases from reaching our shores,” says U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Without USAID, the United States is left without one of our first lines of defense against deadly viruses like Ebola.” On the ground, the math is brutal. Oxfam’s country director in the DRC, Dr. Manenji Mangundu, tells my colleague Michael Igoe that his team needs about $10 million for water and sanitation, community engagement, and protection work. Right now, it has $400,000. “If you don’t have those resources, you will not be able to have enough human resources to do the contact tracing and provide that surveillance system that is needed,” Mangundu says. |
|
Sponsored Announcement
Devex Impact House @ London Climate Action Week on June 25
Devex Impact House at London Climate Action Week will bring together global leaders in finance, development, philanthropy, civil society, and innovation for live discussions on the most urgent climate challenges and solutions. The event will explore how emerging coalitions, climate finance, resilient food and health systems, artificial intelligence, and locally led solutions, particularly from the global south, can help turn climate ambition into meaningful action. |
|
Seeding control
Beneath the business cards and handshakes at the International Seed Federation’s World Seed Congress in Lisbon this week, there was a much bigger anxiety, Senior Editor Tania Karas tells me. Geopolitical shocks are battering seed companies’ bottom lines — and because seeds are the very foundation of the food chain, that pressure could quickly spill into food insecurity and malnutrition.
So this year’s real theme was resilience: How to keep food systems standing when the world keeps wobbling. Enter the World Bank, attending the congress for the first time. “I’m sure some of you are wondering, what is this guy from the World Bank doing here?” Anup Jagwani, the World Bank Group’s director for farming and agribusiness, told a roomful of executives and plant scientists before pitching AgriConnect — the bank’s plan to make smallholder farmers and agribusiness central to its jobs and growth agenda. His case was simple: 1.2 billion young people will enter the workforce over the next decade, but only 400 million jobs are expected. The seed industry can help close that gap while giving the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers access to climate-resilient seeds and better livelihoods. “We need to have farming as a business so that we can translate subsistence to surplus,” Jagwani said. Read: The seed industry’s silver linings playbook See also: Inside the World Bank’s plan to boost jobs by investing in agribusiness  For more content like this, sign up to Devex Dish — a free, must-read weekly newsletter — to keep up to date with the race to remake a more equitable and sustainable global food system.
|
|
In other news
The United Nations is negotiating a draft of an international treaty that would allow countries to tax major tech companies, after parallel talks at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development stalled amid U.S. opposition. [Bloomberg] The International Court of Justice ruled 10-4 that workers’ right to strike is protected under the International Labour Organization’s 1948 Freedom of Association convention, a decision expected to strengthen labor and union rights worldwide. [Al Jazeera] The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has raised alarm over a Taliban decree on marriage that undermines child protection by treating puberty as a threshold for marriage consent and regulates rather than prohibits marriages involving minors. [AP News]
|
|
Thank you for reading today’s Newswire, edited by Fiona Zublin, copy edited by Florence Williams, and produced by Adia Pauline Lim. Have a news tip? Email [email protected].
Forwarded by a friend?
Sign up here to receive the Newswire directly.
|
|
Devex thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters.
Our editorial content remains independent. Interested in partnering with us? Get in touch.
Would you recommend our content?
|
|
Connect with us:
|
