Global health initiatives

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As a proactive member of numerous global health initiatives Germany contributes to strengthening health policy and practice around the world.

In an increasingly globalised world, the emergence of overarching institutions and networks that convene governments, civil society and private sector actors offers all of them a unique opportunity to jointly innovate health policy and practice in many countries at once. Challenges such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that regional and global cooperation is essential for responses to many health and social protection issues.

Germany is active and proactive in many global and multilateral structures. In 2018 it helped initiate WHO’s Global Action Plan for Health and Well-Being for All (GAP), to accelerate the worldwide efforts to attain SDG 3 by 2030. It is a major contributor to the main financing instruments in the health sector: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM); Gavi, the global Vaccine Alliance; the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents (GFF); and the World Bank Group. In the SDG ‘decade of implementation’, Germany supports these as well as UNAIDS, UNFPA and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) not only with financial resources, but with strategic contributions in steering and advisory committees, through secondments to their head offices and through focal points in partner countries. 

To boost the effectiveness of multilateral instruments, Germany has launched global programmes, such as BACKUP Health, which supports countries in accessing and managing GFATM funds, and, jointly with WHO and others, P4H, a partnership in which countries learn from each other and coordinate partner contributions to their journeys towards Universal Health Coverage.

German development cooperation’s rich experience with supporting long-term reform processes can feed into the global policy dialogue, which in turn enhances German support to implementation processes in partner countries. The articles and events featured on this page give an overview of Germany’s activity on the global stage in favour of improving health for all.