The persistent health inequities across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) highlight a stark reality: traditional development financing, while well-intentioned, remains structurally limited in its ability to drive scalable and sustainable impact. After nearly 15 years working across India, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia in both public and private health systems, I have seen firsthand the financing bottlenecks that constrain transformative solutions from maternal health to mental well-being and access to oxygen.
Conventional global health financing has typically leaned on bilateral aid, government grants, and donor funding. While these channels have helped build foundational health infrastructure, they are frequently fragmented, risk-averse, and episodic. Often designed around siloed, disease-specific mandates, traditional funding mechanisms lack the agility to support cross-cutting innovations like digital health, preventive diagnostics, or the electrification of healthcare systems. Moreover, the dwindling of concessional capital, increasing fiscal pressures in LMICs, and donor fatigue compound the challenge.
My recent experience designing and executing programs whether scaling assistive technologies for people living with disabilities or strengthening oxygen delivery systems in Liberia underscores the need to bridge the “missing middle”: projects that are too large for philanthropic grants, or too myopic with their development mandate, and too risky for commercial investment. In these contexts, traditional financing neither de-risks innovation nor incentivizes performance-based outcomes. This is where blended finance offers a pragmatic and catalytic solution.
By combining public or philanthropic capital with private investment, blended finance can unlock new pools of capital and align incentives for diverse stakeholders. Whether it involves structuring impact-linked funds and facilities to enhance efficiency of care-pathways, or through financial solutions that create stronger incentives for more effective public and private sector collaboration to improve healthcare outcomes.
Blended finance also enables more dynamic governance models, bringing together research institutions, technology developers, and community-based organisations. Furthermore, an intersectional lens also enables better governance. When blended finance is deployed in a way that centres the voices of marginalized groups whether adolescent girls, persons with disabilities, or rural health workers it catalyses inclusive innovation. From mental health ecosystems in cities like Nairobi and Chennai to maternal and child health platforms in Kenya, multisectoral partnerships anchored in equity have driven real results. In essence, the future of global health finance lies not in choosing between traditional and innovative approaches, but in weaving them together through a lens of equity and inclusion. We must move beyond project-based charity toward outcome-oriented investment. As a practitioner straddling the worlds of innovation and finance, I remain optimistic. The tools exist.
The will is emerging. What we now need is bold execution health equity; after all, it is not just a moral imperative it is an investable one.
Got questions? Want to get involved? Reach out to:
Karthik Subbaraman, Associate Partner, Healthcare Advisory Practice, Human Planet
Karthik@human-planet.com