Devex’s “Impact” blog examines a new partnership model being implemented by the GAVI Alliance, noting, “Three hundred and seventy million children in the world’s poorest countries have been immunized with support from GAVI.” The existing partnership model “has enabled the delivery of millions of low-cost vaccines into developing countries — and demonstrated how multinationals can be incentivized to tackle major development challenges,” the blog writes. “But, as GAVI’s leaders have learned, ensuring a vaccine supply alone is not enough to solve the world’s immunization problems. That supply must be effectively managed,” the blog continues, adding, “According to David Ferreira, managing director for GAVI’s innovative finance department, GAVI began to consider new ways of partnering with private-sector companies,” and “[w]here previously those companies had made primarily financial commitments, now GAVI wanted to tap into their core business expertise.”

“At the end of 2012, GAVI announced its first such partnership, a collaboration with U.K.-based telecom Vodafone that seeks to increase Mozambique’s vaccine coverage rate by improving information flows along the supply chain,” according to “Impact.” The blog examines why the mHealth market in Africa “is an important business priority for Vodafone” and discusses the partnership in detail. Noting “Ferreira said the GAVI leadership worried about the risk of ‘pilotitis,’ a common scenario in which a new development model is tested as a pilot but never fully brought to scale due to a lack of planning or other issues,” the blog writes, “It’s far too early to assess whether the GAVI-Vodafone partnership will be successful — implementation hasn’t even begun. But if it is successful, it has the potential to demonstrate that a company seeking to grow into new mHealth markets can achieve business goals while helping to solve an important development challenge.” The blog notes, “It has now been about 18 months since Vodafone and GAVI started their partnership conversation, and both sides are hopeful that implementation will begin soon” (Hanson, 8/21).