Despite increased health capital flow into Asia Pacific, development is not progressing at the pace envisioned by the SDGs, begging the question: why do health issues continue to be severely underfunded? This question was explored at AVPN’s Global Conference 2025 in Hong Kong, the annual event where movers and shakers convene for massive social impact in the region. To introduce key AVPN-led health development initiatives and channel capital for impact, AVPN hosted sessions with big health ecosystem players and common across sessions was the focus on localisation and strategic thinking on contextualisation – the right partners and strategies are required to enhance the effectiveness, credibility, and financing of health programmes in the region.
The AVPN Health Impact Programme aims to foster partnerships for equitable health systems in Asia through relationship building, collaborative learning, and capital mobilisation among health actors. Partnerships are focused on pressing health issues in the region, which were explored in several conference sessions as described below.
Nutrition: In Need of a Compelling Investment Narrative
An astonishing 64% of malnourished children in the world live in Asia. Despite the availability of tried and tested interventions, the sector receives remarkably little funding and attention, contributing to a USD 13 billion global annual funding gap and a USD 41 trillion loss to the global economy over the next decade.
In response, the AVPN Nutrition Leaders Programme, led by AVPN in partnership with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and the Eleanor Crook Foundation, aims to mobilise Asian leaders to improve funding for child and maternal nutrition through access to investable projects, discussions with frontline workers, a knowledge hub, and an engaging community of practice.
As a first step, AVPN hosted a session at the Conference with select funders to discuss investing strategies for nutrition. The discussion highlighted that funding pitches must emphasise how nutrition links to other priorities, such as education and the economy. Moreover, messaging should emphasise not only the urgency of the nutrition “epidemic”, but also how initiatives can be scaled by integrating with other interventions, such as vaccine drives.
Infectious Diseases Research and Development (R&D): Get it Right from the Start
In 2021, infectious diseases caused 68.5 million disability-adjusted life years in the Southeast Asia region. There is critical underfunding in the sector, however, with late-stage clinical trials of new drugs for neglected diseases requiring over USD 8 billion in funding in 2017. Moreover, in 2018, clinical trials received only 35% of global neglected diseases R&D funding, with the rest given to preclinical research.
To respond to this issue, AVPN, Wellcome Trust and Access Partnership have partnered to produce a whitepaper to assess scalable financing instruments for infectious diseases R&D across South and Southeast Asia. This paper was developed from desk research and expert consultation, and was shared during a closed-door session at the Global Conference, which aimed to gauge funder interest about forming partnerships to implement innovative financing strategies for infectious diseases R&D.
The discussion led to various insights. First, vaccine funding narratives must be tied to public health priorities. Second, philanthropic funding can fill the space between preliminary and late stage research financing. Third, philanthropic partners can encourage private investment using innovative financing, e.g., pooled procurement and advance market commitments. Fourth, to increase investment and impact, researchers, policymakers and investors need to collaborate throughout the vaccine lifecycle.
Climate and Health: Transforming an Obstacle into an Opportunity
Climate change is expected to cause a massive 600 million disability-adjusted life years in Asia by 2050, with food, water, air quality, infectious diseases and health systems being impacted by adverse weather events. The APAC region needs more than USD 3 billion to develop climate and health interventions, yet only receives USD 0.45 billion from current international government aid.
AVPN, in partnership with the Bayer Foundation, India Health Fund, Prudence Foundation, PATH, Dalberg, MovingWorlds, and SingHealth Duke-NUS, has launched a USD 5 million fund for promising climate and health strategies. This year, 5 grantees received USD 50,000 to 200,000 to implement solutions to heat stress and climate-sensitive infectious diseases. A community of practice involving innovators, funders and investors will support the scale up of strategies.
The first community of practice session occurred at the Conference and key insights highlighted that innovators may use philanthropic catalytic capital and later on secure private capital by providing return on investment measures and public resources by aligning with government agendas. Funders, however, should co-construct meaningful solutions with innovators.
Youth Mental Health: Stitching a Fragmented Ecosystem
Asia has the 2nd-highest psychiatric disorder rate globally, and an alarming USD 158 billion, approximately 5% of Asia-Pacific’s GDP, is lost due to mental health issues. As such, ASEAN states are recommended to spend 5% of health budgets on mental wellbeing, yet actual spending is under 3%. This financing gap is amplified in rural Asia, since over 80% of mental health funds go to urban care.
AVPN, Dalberg and EMpower have responded by launching the Youth Mental Wellbeing Fund 2.0 to scale contextualised mental health interventions across Asia, developed by youth and communities. At the Conference, a session on the Fund highlighted that to strengthen youth mental wellbeing, there is a need to foster research, policy and practice partnerships based on trust and commitment. To this end, AVPN has developed the new Being Initiative: a multistakeholder partnership to develop a national policy for youth mental health in Indonesia, given the country’s high disease burden. The initiative will foster co-learning, trust building, and resource mobilisation to strengthen the mental health ecosystem.
CALL TO ACTION
The Conference led to powerful messaging on crucial health issues facing APAC and co-construction of strategies is required for lasting impact. If interested in learning more about our health development initiatives, reach out to the Health Impact team.
