ODA Spending

How much ODA does Sweden allocate to global health?

In 2023, Sweden was the 8^th-largest donor to global health in absolute terms and the 11^th-largest in relative terms.

Sida has three priority areas for global health ODA:

• Strong health systems;
• SRHR; and
• Promoting healthy living.

How is Swedish ODA to global health changing?

Sweden's contributions to health have decreased since 2021. The increase in Sweden’s health ODA in 2021 was closely tied to Sweden’s COVID-19 support. Also associated with this increase is Sweden’s funding for health earmarked funding through multilaterals, which rose from US$236 million in 2020 to US$249 million in 2021. This share has since declined in 2023 to the lowest it has been since 2019.

How is Swedish ODA to global health allocated?

Bilateral Spending

In 2022, Sweden disbursed 46.5% of its health ODA bilaterally, although 24% of the total was earmarked funding through multilaterals.

Multilateral Spending and Commitments

In 2023, 53% of Sweden’s health ODA consisted of core contributions to multilateral organizations.

Key multilateral partners include:

• The Global Fund;
• Gavi;
• The World Bank's IDA; and
• UNFPA.

In line with its overall multilateral funding, the Swedish government is also a strong supporter of UN agencies.

Funding and Policy Outlook

What is the current government's perspective on global health ODA?

Sweden's work for SRHR: Sweden has a leading role in global health with a focus on resilient and sustainable health systems, maternal and child health and SRHR. In relation to SRHR, Sida works with partners that enable individuals to make informed decisions about their bodies. This includes support to prevent unintended pregnancies and diseases such as HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, through access to information, products and services including access to safe abortion and menstrual health management. Sida also supports programs that aim to prevent gender-based violence, and to protect the rights and service needs of LGBTQI+ persons. Engaging boys and men to change social norms and behavior related to health and SRHR is also a priority. Within Sida’s research support, there are health programs with focus on vaccines, diagnostics, health policy, artificial intelligence for health and antimicrobial resistance. Sida’s humanitarian assistance also includes health interventions and services.

Laying a foundation for sustainable and quality health systems: : Improved health for the most vulnerable features prominently in the priorities set in Sweden’s 2023 strategy “Development assistance for a new era freedom, empowerment and sustainable growth”. , but specific priorities for health fall under the scope of the global strategy for sustainable social development, published in July 2018, which covers the period from 2018-2022 and comes with a SEK7.1 billion ( US$816 million) envelope. Objectives of the strategy include HSS, SRHR, water and sanitation, enhanced capacity to promote healthier lives, and the prevention of the adverse health impacts of environmental pollution and climate change. Rights-based and anti-discrimination approaches form the basis of Sweden’s activities in global health, with the principal objective of promoting equitable health.

Sweden is committed to tackling AMR: Sweden is also committed to tackling AMR, with the Uppsala-based organization ReAct. To support LICs' fight against AMR, between 2019-2022, Swedish funding to ReAct is expected to reach SEK72 million ( US$7.6 million). As a complement to its support for ReAct, in January 2021, Sweden provided an additional SEK70 million ( US$8 million) to the UN AMR MPTF—a funding mechanism to support WHO, the FAO, and OIE in their joint work on AMR. Sida has also supported research on AMR, with an estimated SEK35 million ( abbr"US$3.7 million) allocated to the ‘Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance’ between 2020 and 2022.

On August 17, 2023, Sweden unveiled its annual report on development assistance in global health and SRHR, which underscored Sweden's goal of promoting global health as one of its foremost development policy priorities.

Key Bodies

Global health R&D is also important to addressing many of the global health challenges that disproportionately affect the world’s most disadvantaged people. For more information on how donor countries are supporting global health R&D across three main areas — 1) EIDs; 2) PRNDs; and 3) SRH — read the excellent G-Finder reports and explore the interactive data portal created by Policy Cures Research. Not all funding mentioned in these analyses qualifies as ODA. |