The most valuable early-stage decision may be to reshape or stop a project before major resources are committed. A hospital project can respond to a genuine healthcare need and still be the wrong investment. The problem may not be an inadequate design or an unsuitable financing structure. It may be more fundamental: the project may have defined the solution before it properly understood the need. The wrong starting question Healthcare infrastructure projects often begin with a physical answer: a 200-bed hospital, a specialist centre, an extension to an existing facility or a new diagnostic unit. Political urgency, visible capacity shortages and stakeholder expectations can create pressure to move quickly toward design, tendering and financing. Yet “What should we build?” is not the first question. The first question is “What health-service problem must be solved?” This distinction matters because infrastructure is only one possible response to a healthcare need. A shortage of accessibl...
In the period from the 13th to the 16th of July 2015, the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, organized by the UN, was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 174 United Nations member states sent delegations; 28 heads of State, vice presidents and heads of government attended. Governments were joined by the heads of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO), prominent business and civil society leaders, and other stakeholders. As an outcome, heads of states and governments adopted the Addis Ababa Action Agenda known also as AAAA . The text of the document was endorsed by the General Assembly in its resolution 69/313 of 27 July 2015. The Action Agenda establishes a strong foundation to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It provides a new global framework for financing sustainable development by aligning all financing flows and policies with economic, s...