Gavi CEO outlines ‘leap into 6.0’ strategy, putting countries first

<a class="spreaker-player" href="https://www.spreaker.com/episode/davos-dispatch-gavi-ceo-outlines-leap-into-6-0-strategy-putting-countries-first--63928376" data-resource="episode_id=63928376" data-width="100%" data-height="200px" data-theme="light" data-playlist="false" data-playlist-continuous="false" data-chapters-image="true" data-episode-image-position="right" data-hide-logo="true" data-hide-likes="false" data-hide-comments="false" data-hide-sharing="false" data-hide-download="true">Listen to "Davos Dispatch: Gavi CEO outlines &#39;leap Into 6.0&#39; strategy, putting countries first" on Spreaker.<script async src="https://widget.spreaker.com/widgets.js"></script></a> Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, YouTube, or search “Devex” in your favorite podcast app. Sania Nishtar, the CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance sees the organization’s new five-year strategy — dubbed “Gavi 6.0” — as an opportunity for a reset. “And as part of the reset, I think the most important thing for me and my colleagues is to put the country at the heart of the transformation,” she said. Nishtar provided Devex with an exclusive preview of a transformation she called “the Gavi leap into 6.0.” The organization would share more details in the coming weeks. The plan involves putting countries first, in part by breaking down silos that exist between global health organizations, Nishtar told Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar during a special episode of the This Week in Global Development podcast from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. When Nishtar served as Pakistan’s minister of social protection, the largest department she led was the one that dealt with development entities, each with their own reporting and oversight requirements. “And I come with that understanding into Gavi, and I’m trying to make things easier for countries,” she said. Since becoming CEO of Gavi last March, Nishtar has visited health care facilities around the world where she sees Gavi kiosks with cold boxes and vaccines. And when she leaves, she finds herself asking: “What happens when we exit?” But in order to make things easier for countries, Gavi and the global health institutions they collaborate with need to leave their egos at the door, Nishtar said. “We've got to join hands and try to collaborate better, collaborate better, exploit synergy, recognize each other's comparative advantage,” she said, “in a very proactive way chalk out collaborative division of labor so that there's no fragmentation, there's no duplication. There is this one voice and one line of support at the country end.” The Gavi leap into 6.0 will also address a key challenge that’s come up in Gavi’s work investing in technologies, from infant biometrics to drones for medical delivery, Nishtar said. “The challenge is in piecing everything together, you know, piecing all of these technologies that exist at a stand-alone level and are commercially viable for some solution, but they're not pieced together for the last mile,” she explained. Nishtar said “the Gavi leap” will include a “scale-up instrument” to “scale up proven solutions,” ensuring these technologies result in better immunization outcomes.