Jakarta – Indonesia Philanthropy Association was recently involved in a discussion aimed at finding solutions to the dengue vaccination issue in Indonesia. The Milken Institute facilitated this particular workshop. Milken is a think tank organization based in the United States and, through its Financial Innovations Lab project, it tries to develop new ideas and partnerships to support the funding of vaccination programs in Indonesia. The workshop was called ‘New Models for Financing Vaccination Programs’ and it involved participants from the philanthropy sector, academia, research centres, and government agencies.

The workshop participants worked together to identify funding gaps and potential solutions for improving vaccination programs. Central issues were the willingness to pay for a vaccine, the price of the vaccine and its procurement. However, during the working group discussions, other concerns regarding vaccination programs were identified, namely, staff training and retention, community education and behavioural change, and data collection. Through this discussion, the private and philanthropy sectors are hoped to become more well-informed when engaging donors and initiating conversations on new financial models to fund vaccination programs in Indonesia.