“Beyond policies that reduce the transactions and agency costs, debt-climate swaps and related climate finance instruments deserve official financial support“, Dr Christoph Benn, JLI Director of Center for Global Health Diplomacy
Last week JLI’s Christoph Benn was asked to participate in the #G20 Health Working Group meeting in Brasilia last week to provide the keynote address in a side event on Debt Swaps for Health (D2H). D2H is an instrument for financing global health programs originally launched by his team while at The Global Fund in 2007.
Debt Swaps for Health (D2H) are an innovative instrument for financing global health programs. Under D2H, a creditor country relinquishes its rights to repayment of outstanding debt on the condition that the debtor country channels part or all of this repayment to health programs in their own country.
This specific form of debt swaps was launched at a replenishment conference of the Global Fund in 2007 under the leadership of JLI director Christoph Benn and his Global Fund team at that time. They were building on the experience of debt swaps in other sectors such as environment and education. Given this role, Christoph Benn was asked to provide the keynote address at the G20 Health Experts Meeting Side event: “Debt for Health – past experiences and lessons learned” in Brasilia on April 9, 2024.
The objective of the Brazilian G20 Presidency is to issue a G20 Finance and Health Ministers’ Declaration on debt-for-health at its meeting later this year encouraging its wider use by countries and international organizations.
Download Christoph’s Presentation:
Download Global Fund’s Debt2Health Lessons Learned:
