Poverty, social justice and global health: How can the Health Impact Fund (HIF) make a difference?

PUBLIC EVENT co-organised by by CROP, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) and the Student Welfare Organisation in Bergen (SiB).

Prof. Thomas Pogge, CROP Scientific Committee Chair and a world leading specialist on the nexus of poverty, social justice and global health, was the main speaker at a public conference in Bergen on Aug 30th 2011. The event was a unique opportunity for a wide audience to understand the dimension of the problem under discussion as well as to envisage a possible solution for one of the most urgent health problems affecting the poor: lack of access to lifesaving medication. One answer could be the Health Impact Fund (HIF). Through innovative incentives the HIF seeks to stimulate innovators to focus on the development of new high-impact medicines against diseases that are now neglected, keeping availability high and prices to the lowest feasible cost of production. HIF rewards would also motivate innovators to ensure that their products are competently prescribed and optimally used.

The event included a debate with Norwegian academics Prof. Ole Frithjof Norheim and researcher Christine Årdal who critically approached the HIF initiative and engaged in the public debate with Pogge and the audience. The lively Q&A session engaged the audience, with well over 100 persons in attendance filling all seats of the venue Det Akademiske Kvarter.