By Anaïse Boucher-Browning '22 and Manasi Singh '24
Today, day three, marked the midpoint of our week in Salzburg. Our day began with a thorough review of key emerging themes including regional leadership, strengthening primary healthcare systems, pooled procurement designs, and more. Reflecting on our journey since day one, we've made significant progress in addressing the pivotal questions and potential solutions for designing vaccine procurement processes to best serve low and middle-income countries.
Following group discussions, we broke into three rotating groups for “knowledge cafés” on funding mechanisms for pooled procurement, the role of contracts within negotiations, and sustaining pandemic preparedness networks. Each group was led by an expert fellow who grounded the conversation in past experiences and prompted a consideration of future possible scenarios.
Groups in "knowledge cafés"
In the afternoon, the group took a well-earned break to explore the beautiful city of Salzburg! We ventured on foot to the city center, where we had the wonderful opportunity to listen to a pianist playing an 18th-century Viennese fortepiano in the house where Mozart was born. As we made our way back to the Schloss, the sun emerged, offering us an incredible view of the surrounding Alpine scenery.
Group learning about the famous Hohensalzburg Fortress
We concluded our day by participating in a healthcare funding negotiations simulation. Participants were tasked with embodying real roles through fictitious personas, aiming to set a five-year budget for the vaccine supply for a hypothetical country within certain constraints. Following the simulation, we broke character to discuss the situations each group ran into while negotiating between domestic and international actors.
Discussions in the healthcare funding negotiations simulation