The high level taskforce on innovative international financing for health systems.

Representatives of the High Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems held a first consultation meeting with civil society actors on 5 March 2009 in London. Set up in September 2008, in response to the call by world leaders at the UN High Level Event in New York, for an additional US$30 billion to save 10 million lives – 3 million mothers and 7 million children – the Taskforce brings together a small number of leading figures in the international community from both the North and the South selected on the basis of the perspectives they can each offer on innovative financing, health systems or political feasibility. These include, among others, Prime Minister Gordon Brown (United Kingdom) (co-chair) Robert Zoellick (President of the World Bank) (co-chair) President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia) and Graça Machel (President and Founder, Foundation for Community Development, Mozambique). Its objective is to fill national financing gaps to reach the health MDGs through mobilizing additional resources; increasing the financial efficiency of health financing; and enhancing the effective use of funds.