Optimizing Investments for a Sustainable and Efficient HIV Response in Togo: Findings From an HIV Allocative Efficiency Study

This report summarizes the findings of an allocative efficiency analysis of Togo’s HIV response. The Government of Togo indicated a desire to mobilize additional resources, including domestic and private resources, for comprehensive HIV services to respond to the goals of the national HIV Strategic Plan. To ensure that the resources that have been, or will be, mobilized are used in the most efficient way, and to determine the allocation of resources that brings the greatest health benefit, the Government of Togo asked the World Bank to conduct an allocative efficiency analysis using the Optima HIV mathematical model. The findings highlighted a significant treatment gap, and argue strongly for additional funding to scale up ART and increase coverage, in particular for key populations. In order to reduce incidence and deaths by 50 percent, resources should be shifted from prevention programs targeting the general low risk population to ART, PMTCT, and non-ART prevention programs targeting key populations

Communicating the health of the planet and its links to human health

The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on planetary health1 in 2015 argued that although human health has improved dramatically between 1950 and 2010, this gain was accompanied by unprecedented environmental degradation that now threatens both human health and life-support systems. The sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6)—Healthy Planet, Healthy People—a report adopted by 193 countries in March, 2019, reinforces this message by showing how the state of the environment has further deteriorated with increasing consequences for human health. GEO-6 goes beyond single-issue assessments (eg, climate change [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], biodiversity [Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services], and ocean health [Ocean Health Index]) and health assessments of specific risks to assess the state of the environment, policies, and outlooks for the future in an 800-page report (assessing more than 3880 sources). The report is a product of 146 authors, with input from a High-Level Intergovernmental and Stakeholder Advisory Group, a Scientific Advisory Panel, and an Assessment Methodology Group and has been subject to 14 388 review comments by 1370 reviewers. Here, we integrate and focus this information to convey the subtitle of the report: Healthy Planet, Healthy Peopl