Introduction

This chapter discusses the existing disconnect between global health funding and needs, how to prioritize allocation of resources in response to such needs, and the ways in which stakeholders should make funding decisions. It lays the groundwork for a book that seeks to advance discussion delineating the questions that must be addressed, identify approaches that are clearly unjustifiable, narrow the range of disagreement to make the process of developing a shared framework more tractable, and offer specific recommendations that should be incorporated into a shared framework. The book focuses on four fundamental and related concerns in allocating health resources: (1) the role of cost-effectiveness analysis, (2) inequalities and distributional concerns, (3) what outcomes should be considered, and (4) what the actual practice of allocating resources should look like.