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. 2020 Jul 14;38(33):5372-5378.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.05.048. Epub 2020 Jun 4.

Global Vaccine Action Plan Lessons Learned II: Stakeholder Perspectives

Angela Hwang  1 , Chantal Veira  2 , Stefano Malvolti  3 , Thomas Cherian  4 , Noni MacDonald  5 , Christoph Steffen  6 , Ian Jones  7 , Alan Hinman  8 , Carsten Mantel  9
Affiliations

Global Vaccine Action Plan Lessons Learned II: Stakeholder Perspectives

Angela Hwang et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

Introduction: The Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), unanimously endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 2012, defined an ambitious strategy to improve immunization. At the end of the decade, significant progress has been made but four of the five GVAP goals are likely to be missed. This report describes a set of surveys and interviews relating to GVAP, conducted to inform the immunization strategy for the next decade.

Methods: Three surveys and two sets of semi-structured interviews were conducted from 2017 to 2019. Respondents consisted of immunization stakeholders at global, regional, and country levels, and included individuals who had been involved in the development and implementation of GVAP or its monitoring, evaluation and accountability (M&E/A) process; national immunization managers; academics; and personnel from non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations.

Results: The surveys and interviews gave consistent results. They highlighted the value of GVAP in increasing visibility for immunization and the benefits of the GVAP M&E/A framework. The main limitations of GVAP were identified as the limited ownership by countries and other stakeholders leading to incomplete implementation of the strategy and poor accountability for achieving GVAP targets.

Discussion: These results informed the review of GVAP and the development of its successor strategy, the Immunization Agenda 2030. In addition, these surveys and interviews identified two challenges in assessing the value of GVAP: the need to rely exclusively on stakeholder perspectives and difficulties in attributing benefits. These challenges are inherent in evaluating an over-arching strategy such as GVAP and should be factored into interpretation of the results.

Keywords: Evaluation; GVAP; Global Vaccine Action Plan; IA2030; Immunization Agenda 2030; Immunization strategy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Angela Hwang served on the DoV M&E/A secretariat from 2013 to 2017 as an employee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Thomas Cherian assisted the DoV Collaboration Delivery Working Group and served on the DoV M&E/A Secretariat from 2012 to 2017 as an employee of the WHO. Noni MacDonald has been a member of SAGE and the Chair of the SAGE DoV Working Group since 2017. Christoph Steffen has managed the DoV M&E/A Secretariat since 2017 as an employee of the WHO. Alan Hinman served on the SAGE DoV Working Group from 2013 to 2015 as an independent expert. Carsten Mantel assisted the DoV Collaboration Delivery Working Group as an employee of the WHO. All authors attest they meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
GVAP Contribution to improving global immunization. Perceived GVAP contribution to improving global immunization, actions with average score of 2 or greater, sorted by average score (all respondents combined).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
GVAP Contribution to achieving Strategic Objectives. Perceived GVAP contribution to achieving SOs, sorted by average score (all respondents combined).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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