A new brief on the future of health financing
A new vision for how the world finances health is taking shape — one in which countries lead, domestic resources form the foundation, and international cooperation is built around shared priorities rather than dependency.
This shift has been given fresh urgency by the disruption of recent years. The deep aid cuts of early 2025 sent global health into a period of upheaval — but they have also opened a wider and more consequential debate about how health, and the global functions that protect us all, should be financed in the decades ahead.
Our new brief, The future of health financing, offers a perspective on that question, and on what it will take to turn this moment into lasting reform. It builds on a series of roundtables convened between December 2025 and March 2026, which brought together more than twenty leaders from economics, finance, global health and politics under the Chatham House rule, and draws on the wider reform discourse now unfolding.
At its heart is a simple argument: the debate is not only about money, but about power — who sets priorities, who is accountable, and on whose terms countries cooperate.
The brief sets out three interdependent parts of a future financing model — domestic resources as the foundation, development assistance as a strategic and time-bound complement, and global public goods financed collectively for the benefit of all. It considers how, in practice, change can be delivered.
We are grateful to all who took part in the roundtable discussions and shared their insights. We hope the brief contributes to a conversation that is moving, encouragingly, from identifying problems towards shaping solutions.