All too often, the stream of life saving medicines or other health goods intended for recipients in the developing world becomes interrupted for one reason or another. Funds sometimes dry up unexepectedly forcing the supplier to hold shipments. People suffer as a result.
To try and navigate a way around this unfortunate dynamic, the UN Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have borrowed a concept from the financial world to find a way in which a third party can provide collatoral against which suppliers can be guaranteed to be paid on time and in full for medicines and other health care goods that they provide. They call it the “Pledge Guarantee for Health.” The article below, from Alliance Magazine, does a good job summarizing what it is and how it works. Check it out.