The Open Philanthropy Project awarded a grant of $476,859 to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) to support the first phase of the creation of the Global Health Security (GHS) Index, a public report that will score countries on factors relevant to biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, a focus area of the Open Philanthropy Project. NTI, a nonprofit focused on preventing catastrophic attacks with weapons of mass destruction, intends to partner with the Center for Health Security (to whom we have previously made a grant) and the Economist Intelligence Unit to develop this Index.
Planned activities for phase one of this project include:
- Developing a draft framework for the Index based on information from literature reviews and expert interviews.
- Convening an international expert advisory group to refine the framework and generate a list of potential metrics and indicators.
- Determining the availability of data sets for each metric and indicator.
- Publishing a set of 20-30 metrics and indicators that can be used to measure global health security in an index.
The Open Philanthropy Project believes that, if successful, a GHS Index would drive political accountability by calling attention to countries that are failing to adequately invest in health security. The Index could also be a useful tool for mapping gaps and thereby identifying funding opportunities for national governments, the Open Philanthropy Project, or other funders.