Quantitative analyses and modelling to support achievement of the 2020 goals for nine neglected tropical diseases

Quantitative analysis and mathematical models are useful tools in informing strategies to control or eliminate disease. Currently, there is an urgent need to develop these tools to inform policy to achieve the 2020 goals for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). In this paper we give an overview of a collection of novel model-based analyses which aim to address key questions on the dynamics of transmission and control of nine NTDs: Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis, human African trypanosomiasis, leprosy, soil-transmitted helminths, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis and trachoma. Several common themes resonate throughout these analyses, including: the importance of epidemiological setting on the success of interventions; targeting groups who are at highest risk of infection or re-infection; and reaching populations who are not accessing interventions and may act as a reservoir for infection,. The results also highlight the challenge of maintaining elimination ‘as a public health problem’ when true elimination is not reached. The models elucidate the factors that may be contributing most to persistence of disease and discuss the requirements for eventually achieving true elimination, if that is possible. Overall this collection presents new analyses to inform current control initiatives. These papers form a base from which further development of the models and more rigorous validation against a variety of datasets can help to give more detailed advice. At the moment, the models’ predictions are being considered as the world prepares for a final push towards control or elimination of neglected tropical diseases by 2020

Quantitative analyses and modelling to support achievement of the 2020 goals for nine neglected tropical diseases

Quantitative analysis and mathematical models are useful tools in informing strategies to control or eliminate disease. Currently, there is an urgent need to develop these tools to inform policy to achieve the 2020 goals for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). In this paper we give an overview of a collection of novel model-based analyses which aim to address key questions on the dynamics of transmission and control of nine NTDs: Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis, human African trypanosomiasis, leprosy, soil-transmitted helminths, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis and trachoma. Several common themes resonate throughout these analyses, including: the importance of epidemiological setting on the success of interventions; targeting groups who are at highest risk of infection or re-infection; and reaching populations who are not accessing interventions and may act as a reservoir for infection,. The results also highlight the challenge of maintaining elimination 'as a public health problem' when true elimination is not reached. The models elucidate the factors that may be contributing most to persistence of disease and discuss the requirements for eventually achieving true elimination, if that is possible. Overall this collection presents new analyses to inform current control initiatives. These papers form a base from which further development of the models and more rigorous validation against a variety of datasets can help to give more detailed advice. At the moment, the models' predictions are being considered as the world prepares for a final push towards control or elimination of neglected tropical diseases by 2020

Impact Management Discipline: The Key to Effective Impact Investing and Grantmaking

Foundations have a long history of putting impact at the center of their decision-making when allocating resources for grantmaking. Effective grantmaking follows clear processes that have similarities to the best practices employed by the impact investing community for effectively deploying and managing an impact investing portfolio. This is exemplified by the Operating Principles for Impact Management, a leading market standard for how to integrate impact considerations throughout the investment life cycle. As a growing number of foundations embrace impact investing, understanding and comparing the impact management approach for grants (where it is enabled through monitoring, evaluation, and learning) versus that for investments (where the equivalent practice is typically referred to as impact measurement and management) can help practitioners harmonize and enhance their practices for assessing whether their interventions are achieving their desired objectives. This article uses a case study of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Zero Gap Fund, an impact investment platform established in partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, to elucidate the IMM practices used by impact investors, as well as to show how and why the impact investment field is using independent verification and benchmarking to strengthen practices. BlueMark, a provider of impact verification services, conducted an independent verification of the fund’s IMM systems in 2021 as a means for the ZGF team to improve its approach to IMM. Expanding on the themes in the case study, this article also discusses trends among impact investors more broadly, drawing on BlueMark’s 60-plus verifications (as of March 2022) across a diverse group of impact investors, as well as the parallels and opportunities for learning between impact measurement and management and monitoring, evaluation, and learning professionals