An evaluation of GAVI Alliance efforts to introduce new vaccines via the Accelerated Development and Introduction Plans (ADIPs) and the Hib Initiative (HI)

GAVI created the Accelerated Development and Introduction Plans (ADIPs) in 2002, in response to delays in uptake of new vaccines in developing countries. The vaccines to be included were proposed by GAVI's Research and Development (R&D) Task Force after an extensive process including country inputs. It was determined to focus on the "low hanging fruit" - those vaccines against diseases with high burden in developing countries and for which a product was already defined.

The Terms of Reference of the study are :
- to take stock of the way the environment for new vaccine development and
introduction has evolved over the past four years,
- to assess the progress made and highlight the lessons learnt through the
innovative ADIPs approach, the Hib initiative and other new vaccine
introduction related GAVI supported activities; and,
- to make recommendations to the GAVI Board on the structure and finance [of] its continued support in this priority area in the coming years.

The scope of the project includes (1) a description of how the environment prevailing at the time of the launch of these initiatives has evolved and how this may have an impact on the relevance and objectives of these initiatives; (2) an evaluation of the structures themselves, in terms of their mandates, achievements, governance, and constraints; and (3) a proposal for the future role of the Alliance to continue to support the introduction of these and other new vaccines in the developing world.

It should be noted that the HI has been in existence for a shorter period of time, and is only midway into its implementation phase. It is therefore difficult to demonstrate or assess achievements at this stage.

The methodology used was consultation of available documentation and semistructured interviews with a variety of stakeholders at country, industry, and donor level, and then fitting this information into the framework of the "virtuous cycle." The limitations of the methodology - the fact that a controlled study with quantitative data is not possible when measuring the impact of such interventions - means that the results are of necessity limited and depend on judgements on what would have happened in the absence of the ADIPs and HI. Nevertheless, most of the observations reported were consistently noted in several different contexts.