Christoph Benn in China for Peking University’s Symposium on Global Development Finance and Debt-to-Health (D2H) Swaps

JLI’s  Christoph Benn, senior advisor Syarifah Liza Munira, and policy analyst Jiabin XU, PhD represented the JLI Center for Global Health Diplomacy at Peking University’s Symposium on Global Development Finance and Debt-to-Health (D2H) Swaps. The conference was followed by a meeting with scholars to discuss China’s role in Global Health financing and efforts to strengthen public health security in Asia-Pacific.

In his keynote, Christoph highlighted major milestones in international cooperation and financing but warned of setbacks as the world faces climate change, conflicts, a deepening debt crisis, and declining international aid. He called for a new paradigm of sustainable and equitable cooperation, emphasizing:

He also underscored the need to advance innovative financing solutions — including blended finance, global solidarity levies, and debt operations like D2H swaps — to increase fiscal space for critical investments in health and other development areas.

This marks JLI’s second year at the symposium organized by Peking University. We are grateful to Professor Ming Xu for organizing it and bringing together experts to discuss development finance, the climate & health intersection, debt swaps for health investments, and vaccine and immunisation financing, among other topics.