THE PROBLEM

There has been a longstanding shortage of equitable access to medical oxygen which results in more than one million preventable deaths per year from routine conditions, and at least 7 million deaths due to COVID reported to the WHO during the first four years of the pandemic.  In response to the widespread medical oxygen shortages during the pandemic, the ACT-A Oxygen Emergency Taskforce was formed to coordinate and advocate for increased funding and procurement of oxygen supplies.  The Taskforce successfully mobilized over USD$1 billion for emergency procurement of medical oxygen production plants and equipment.  Although COVID has transitioned from an acute pandemic to an endemic disease, the need to strengthen access to medical oxygen still remains urgent.  The Taskforce evolved in May 2023 to become the Global Oxygen Alliance (GO₂AL), and the new, more inclusive partnership aims to expand and rebalance future oxygen spending from the initial focus on purchasing products to strengthening the systems, markets and people needed to ensure equitable and sustainable access to high-quality medical oxygen.

THE PHAROS SOLUTION

Pharos Global Health Advisors has been hired to develop the GO₂AL Strategy 2024-2030, building on the previous  GO₂AL Strategy: executive summary 2023-2030 developed in September 2023 (also supported by Pharos). It would be used internally – to guide GO₂AL’s direction, priorities, work plan, budget, implementation, resource mobilization and monitoring, and externally – to communicate GO₂AL’s mission, amplify and advocate of its collective efforts, and to mobilize resources to close the oxygen access and investment gaps in LIMCs.

The Strategic Framework outlines five priority objectives to close the oxygen access gap in LMICs:

1. Drive, consolidate and sustain investment;
2. Strengthen supply chains and shape markets;
3. Strengthen country planning and implementation;
4. Advocate and generate demand; and
5. Generate evidence and drive accountability.

The Strategic Framework calls for all actors to each play a part in contributing towards achieving these objectives.

Note: In parallel of the development of the GO₂AL Strategy (or Strategic Framework), another consulting firm (CEPA) with whom Pharos has collaborated intensively was in charge of delivering an Investment Case, describing the return on investment that USD$4 billion could have in closing the oxygen gap, the number of lives that could be saved with various financing envelopes, and how the resources could be mobilized between LMIC domestic and donor sources. Pharos was ultimately in charge of overseeing the final refinement of both Strategy and Investment Case drafts to ensure consistency/ complementarity in the data, messaging, and editorial style of the two documents

LOOKING AHEAD

This Strategic Framework (together with the Investment Case) was published in October 2024, with the aim to be used as a global good or resource that various actors working to increase oxygen can use, including countries, in creating their own costed oxygen plans or case for investing in oxygen. The Global Oxygen Strategic Framework (Strategic Framework) provides an overarching guide for all global health actors – including countries, donors, development finance institutions (DFIs), academia, international agencies, civil society organizations and industry – to work individually and together to comprehensively address oxygen ecosystem barriers.

Status: Completed, October 2024

Team Members Involved: Shan Soe-Lin, Diarmuid Cassidy, and Robert Hecht.

For more information, contact Shan Soe-Lin at [email protected].