Steve Davis, the senior China strategy adviser, interim director for China country office atand Bill Gates foundation delivered a speech at the forum:
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, old friends and new. Thank you for inviting me to this important event. And as a former student of Beida, a special congratulations to the newly established Peking University Institute for global health and development. It's inspiring to know that so many of you from government, academia, business and philanthropy are assembling to focus on the shared vision of strengthening south-south cooperation and development for a better and fairer world.
Since opening our office in China in 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has supported in China in addressing major domestic health and development challenges, and is working with Chinese partners to apply their expertise, experience and resources for the benefit of the world's poorest people. Especially those in sub Saharan Africa.
Given China has a proven track record for developing and manufacturing world class and affordable health products, from vaccines to drugs to contraceptives, we believe China has even greater potential for becoming an effective provider of global, public goods in the future. Over the past decade, our foundation has worked with the government, research institutes, regulatory bodies, private sector companies and global health partners, including the World Health Organization to support the development and distribution of many Chinese health products including helping them obtain WHO prequalification for use in developing countries and supporting the most vulnerable communities in addressing public health challenges.
These experiences reaffirm our belief in this opportunity. Especially as we see the expanding reach of Chinese public health goods through stronger engagement with international organizations and multilateral mechanisms.
Today, I would like to offer two ideas on how China could leverage its unique position to further its global efforts in supplying affordable quality health products.
First, to maximize the impact and minimize the cost of global goods, it is imperative that we think holistically about the full journey of these products across the entire value chain from beginning to end, what activities should be done and what resources must be mobilized in different stages. Too often, we think only about one part of this work.
For instance, the early research stage or the regulatory stage and later find challenges or delays because we didn't consider early enough how to address all of these critical issues, from testing, to prequalification, to export commitments, to marketing, to scaling, all of the way through partnerships. We encourage our partners to assess and plan for the entire journey and we support many efforts across the entire value chain.
Take our work in eliminating malaria, for example. Over the past sixty years, China has reduced malaria cases within its borders from 30 million a year to zero, an incredible achievement that underlies the depth of experience China can bring to these issues. At the Gates foundation, we are working with Chinese and African partners on a wide range of matters across the entire value chain. On the vector control side, we are assisting China to bring high quality, affordable mosquito nets to the global market, as well as to tap into China's R&D capability to explore the potential of innovative insecticides with natural compounds.
On the treatment side, we are supporting China becoming one of the main sources of global procurement of antimalarial drugs and its research in biosynthesis of artemisinin, which may contribute to continuous supply of antimalaria commodities.
To increase the quantity and quality of Chinese antimalarial health products, we are working with the Chinese regulatory agencies and private sector to improve the quality of the Chinese antimalarial products, and support them in obtaining WHO prequalification to maximize their global impact. Or navigate registration, export or procurement policies.
On the strategy side, we are supporting Chinese partners' efforts in capacity building of Africa's CDC through pilot projects as well as further integrate China's innovative proven methods to strengthen malaria control programs and health systems in African countries.
And on the implementation side, we are also supporting China in collaborating with other multilateral mechanism to sustain effective interventions and scale the impact of such contributions.
From early stage R&D and demand side analysis to manufacturing and policy integration, there are a wide range of stakeholders across the value chain. Applying end-to-end thinking helps us identify partners early for functional solutions at different stages. While the value chain of the global health market is complex, it's vital that we apply a holistic approach in order to maximize value at the lowest total cost for our final beneficiaries.
Second, we must accelerate the drive for affordable, digital public goods in global health. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced healthcare systems worldwide to significantly accelerate the transformation or wider adoption of the digitalization of healthcare delivery. As the co-chair of the world health organization's digital health technical advisory group, I believe that many future global public goods will be presented in the form of digital products.
Technologies such as virtual care, remote monitoring, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, smart wearables, tools enabling remote access across the health ecosystem, creating a continuum of care have proven the potential to enhance health outcomes.
The global health markets need more digital tools and services in all of these areas. And China is so well positioned to be a leader in providing digital public goods at an affordable cost. Again, to do this effectively, we need to ensure that we adopt a holistic approach to the entire digital ecosystem, particularly starting from the demand side. That is from the point of view of what consumers and communities in lower and lower middle income countries need and are asking for. Not just pushing products and solutions in from the outside.
China has the potential and commitment to become an even more important provider of global health goods in health. This will require increasing investments, innovating technologies and improving capabilities across every stage of the product's journey. And importantly, we need more innovative models for cooperation, involving bilateral, trilateral and multilateral partnerships. This is why I very much look forward to the discussions from this forum on your collaborative efforts in solution building and establishing sustainable models of public, private, academic partnerships and underscore the Gate's foundations ongoing commitment to work with you on these critical issues. Thank you.
