The following guest post by Susan Crowley, President of Multilateral Consulting, LLC, is part of Disruptive Women’s “The Value of Health: Creating Economic Security in the Developing World” series.

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By any measure, giving programs directed at developing countries by research-based pharmaceutical companies are the most generous of any industry. The Geneva-based International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), whose methodology and data presented in its most recent “Partnerships Report” were validated by the London School of Economics, reported $6.7 billion in giving.

The 2009 “Index on Global Philanthropy,” published by the Hudson Institute, provides a measure of global private giving and, once again, demonstrates that private flows continue to make up a larger percentage of resource flows to the developing world than official development assistance (ODA, i.e., government). Hudson reports that total corporate contributions to overseas programs amount to $6.8 billion. Of this amount, Partnership for Quality Medicine Donations, whose source is pharmaceutical firms, accounts for $6.1 billion, or 90% of total corporate contributions from all sectors to developing countries. Moreover, the $6.8 billion reported by Hudson is greater than the combined annual health budgets of USAID, WHO, the World Bank, and the Gates Foundation.

The geographical scope and therapeutic breadth of these contributions, and the programs they support, are evident immediately via the Global Health Progress searchable database. What is less obvious, but also important, is that these companies have amassed considerable experience in designing and implementing health initiatives across the developing world, and can offer invaluable insight to partnering organizations.

Although the industry’s, and individual companies’, commitments to improving health in developing countries are documented on a scale unmatched elsewhere in the private sector and – in fact—one which exceeds the magnitude of overseas giving programs of several OECD-member nations, staff at the UN institutions, including WHO, remain, on balance, unaware or unimpressed.

The breathtaking generosity of the pharmaceutical industry does little to alter deeply-entrenched views throughout UN organizations and among UN leaders that health and profits are incompatible. Yet, these programs give innovative medicines companies an entry ticket to UN discussions, and the opportunity to engage and make their case. Let’s hope they can succeed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 9:23 am and is filed under Global Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.