Objectives
The World Bank estimated the global costs to achieve the World Health Assembly target to decrease anemia in all women by 50% before 2025. This study estimates current investments towards anemia reduction and develops financing scenarios to close the resource gap.
Methods
The World Banks estimated cost of $12.8 billion in public sector costs over 10 years to scale-up four high-impact micronutrient interventions was used as the total projected resource need to achieve the anemia target by 2025. We reviewed available information on public financing for these interventions from government sources, FAOSTAT expenditure data, and the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development Creditor Reporting System. We modeled two financing scenarios, one under Business as Usual, and another that proposes a coordinated and fair effort to share the burden under Global Solidarity.
Results
Current commitments made by donors and trends in GDP growth will mobilize an additional $5.1 billion over the next 10 years, leaving a gap of $7.7 billion. With current annual investments estimated at just $0.6 billion per year, investments from governments and donors have to increase by 4-fold by 2025 to achieve the annual target of $2.3 billion per year by 2025. Under Global Solidarity, donors contribute 60% of additional needs by 2021, which is when government contributions begin to ramp up so that by 2025, donors contribute only about 20% of additional costs.
Conclusions
Reaching the anemia target is feasible but will require coordinated investments and appropriate monitoring and accountability mechanisms to keep track of funding.
