ICT and Big Data

SAP Creates Dashboards to Help Global Fund Prevent AIDS, Malaria, TB

SAP SE announced today that SAP technology is helping The Global Fund — an international financing organization fighting AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria — to better understand how its financial investments are being used for disease prevention and treatment.SAP previously committed US$4 million over a period of four years to the Global Fund, through its partnership with (RED). SAP is also a founding member of the Global Fund’s Innovation Coalition, which brings together private sector organizations to tackle significant issues related to the organization’s mission of fighting preventable and treatable disease, such as logistics and education.

By Sustainable Brands | Published 10 years ago | About a 4 minute read

SAP previously committed US$4 million over a period of four years to the Global Fund, through its partnership with (RED). SAP is also a founding member of the Global Fund’s Innovation Coalition, which brings together private sector organizations to tackle significant issues related to the organization’s mission of fighting preventable and treatable disease, such as logistics and education.

“SAP is all about helping organizations simplify complexity so they can do anything — and it doesn’t get more complicated than fighting persistent and deadly diseases around the world,” said Simon Paris, president of Industry Cloud at SAP. “By providing our technology innovation and leadership, we can help the Global Fund extend their reach and effectiveness. This partnership shows how technology can revolutionize the healthcare industry and save lives.”

The Global Fund acts essentially as a global public-private partnership that funds local organizations across 140 countries engaged in the fight against these three preventable and treatable diseases. In 2013, it disbursed US$3.9 billion worldwide, including private sector money generated by (RED), to create sustainable funding for the fight against AIDS in Africa. In addition to providing a charitable grant, SAP knew it could significantly increase its impact by contributing technology. With analytics technology and services from SAP, the Global Fund is now using grant management dashboards that provide greater visibility into programmatic, financial and management performance indicators, one of the organization’s biggest challenges.

The dashboards will work as follows: Country coordinators for the Global Fund determine which organizations will be granted aid and set goals for their geographic area. The dashboard allows managers to see at a glance how much money has been disbursed. They can then drill down to see which groups received money and examine more closely how much recipients have received versus how much has been spent. The dashboards also allow managers to review the financial data against critical targets such as maintaining an adequate stock of particular drugs and other supplies, or how effectively they are using antiretroviral therapy (ART) with HIV-positive patients.

The pilot phase for testing the dashboards began in February 2014. They are now live in six countries: Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Dominican Republic, Laos, Uganda and South Africa. The dashboards are being evaluated for roll out in additional countries.

“We would like to thank SAP for their tremendous support and collaboration to fight AIDS, TB and malaria,” said Global Fund executive director Mark Dybul. “We’re very excited about launching the innovation coalition and welcome the meeting this week in Berlin to engage with top German companies and government officials. SAP has demonstrated again its global leadership by creating new innovative solutions to improve the health of people around the world.”

Recognizing the immense impact that strategic innovation can make to its operations, the Global Fund is launching an innovation coalition of leading private sector companies from a variety of industries, academic institutions and foundations to provide expertise that supports the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria. SAP is a founding member of the coalition, and strongly supporting the launch of this cross- industry effort. Member organizations will each bring their unique domain expertise and work together to collectively support the Global Fund’s unique challenges.

Logistics management is the first issue the coalition will attempt to solve holistically for the Global Fund, such as complex supply and demand management and ensuring medications are distributed to patients before expiration. SAP technology, in partnership with expertise from other companies in industries such as transportation or insurance, will unite to try and ensure a more effective method of supplying and distributing medicine.

In addition to helping the Global Fund more effectively treat these deadly diseases across Africa, SAP announced last month it will invest up to $500 million through 2020 to drive sustainable innovation; grow energy, utilities, natural resources and other industry; and build local skill development in Africa, with the overall goal of establishing the continent as one of the company's top-five global growth markets. Much of the direct investment will be across 51 African countries, including Morocco, Nigeria, Angola, Kenya, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania.