Designing the Surveillance Financing Landscape of the Future

Collaborative Surveillance (CS) can only deliver on its promise if it is financed differently: coordinated across actors, sustained over time, and grounded in country priorities. This is not a theoretical argument. The delayed detection, reporting, and response to the Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo resulted in unnecessary human and financial costs. By contrast, the early detection of the same virus in Uganda demonstrated how effective surveillance can save lives and reduce the economic impact of outbreaks. The lesson from both experiences is clear: achieving the 7-1-7 target saves lives and protects livelihoods.

Yet surveillance financing remains too often short-term, externally driven, and project-based, rather than embedded within national health systems as a sustainably financed public health function. Addressing this gap requires a fundamental shift in how surveillance is financed—toward domestic ownership, long-term investment, and aligned with national priorities.

Countries, regional bodies, and financing partners are already testing different approaches to close this gap. While innovative financing mechanisms have yet to be widely applied to Collaborative Surveillance, there are significant opportunities to engage the private sector. This session brings together diverse experiences to examine what domestic and regional financing approaches are working, the barriers that remain, and how international partners can best support nationally and regionally owned financing strategies.

The conversation feeds directly into a live process: the joint development of financing principles for Collaborative Surveillance, shaped together by countries, financing institutions, implementing partners, and global health leaders.