SUMMARY
The Linked 2025 NVI workshop served as a platform for countries to transition from the sharing of experiences to actively shaping advocacy strategies. Through collaborative co-development sessions, participants worked together to design advocacy approaches, carefully map out key stakeholders, and formulate effective messages. The process was enriched by peer inquiry and reflection, allowing for robust discussion and constructive feedback.
Six countries, spread across regions, including Cuba, the Philippines, Maldives, Vietnam, Mongolia and St. Lucia, demonstrated that this collaborative environment inspires transformative change for better health outcomes. Drawing from the knowledge and experiences of their peers, these countries made concrete commitments following the workshop. These included reallocating domestic resources to vaccine initiatives and reinforcing subnational leadership to strengthen vaccine financing mechanisms.
This experience highlights Linked’s vital function as an action-oriented collaborative learning network. The learning goes beyond the theoretical—it results in meaningful reforms that directly contribute to broader and more equitable immunisation coverage. As practitioners’ perspectives from the Philippines and St. Lucia observed, the workshop provided practical guidance on tailoring technical evidence into compelling messages for different decision-makers: emphasising fiscal efficiency to ministries of finance, health impact to ministries of health, and equity to legislators.
INTRODUCTION
The Linked Immunisation Action Network welcomed delegations from six middle income countries along with partner organizations to discuss advocacy strategies to strengthen domestic resource mobilisation for sustainable new vaccine introduction (NVI) and scale-up. The 2.5-day workshop hosted in Manila, the Philippines in July 2025 brought together government representatives from Cuba, St. Lucia, Maldives, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, WHO-WPRO, PAHO, the Philippines WHO country office, the Philippines and Mongolia UNICEF country offices, PATH, and representatives of civil society organizations – CISDI (Indonesia) and PLCPD (Philippines). The workshop aimed to support countries to share effective “how-tos” of implementing advocacy strategies and good practices for prioritising domestic resources for immunisation and sustainably introducing new vaccines, namely the HPV, PCV, and Rotavirus vaccines, and created a space for collaborative peer learning, practical exercises, and action planning.
The workshop was organized and facilitated by Curatio International Foundation in partnership with Results for Development. The Linked Immunisation Action Network’s approach is built on structured peer-to-peer knowledge and experience sharing, combined with collaborative analysis of common challenges and co-development and refining of workable implementation strategies. During the 2025 Manila workshop, country delegations applied tools, such as stakeholder mapping, advocacy goal definition, and message development (adapted from PATH’s 10-step advocacy framework), to design and refine their domestic resource mobilisation strategies. These interactive sessions fostered mutual accountability and created a community of practice where countries learned “with” and “from” one another.
COMMON CHALLENGES ACROSS COUNTRIES
The status of NVI in participating countries varied, reflecting diverse contexts and financing realities. Despite differences, several recurring challenges emerged during the country presentations and peer discussions:
- Weak financial commitment beyond vaccine procurement. While laws, program budgets, or vaccine funds often cover vaccine procurement, other programmatic costs (e.g. cold chain, training, supervision, demand generation) remain underfunded.
- Difficulties securing political support amid competing priorities. Fiscal constraints and competition for resources across sectors may result in ministries of finance prioritising other critical national needs.
- Insufficient strategic advocacy capacity. Immunisation advocacy actors may lack effective tactics, such as messaging that is targeted and tailored to specific decision-makers, consistent communication, alliances with influencers, and data-driven communication strategies and messaging.
- Deficiencies in public financial management and coordination. Bureaucratic inefficiencies in many countries cause delays in the disbursement of allocated funds which then delay the implementation of activities. Weak coordination across government institutions leads to disconnects between policy and financial decisions, slowing approvals and causing missed budgeting cycles.
- Subnational resource mobilisation. To achieve greater equity in immunisation financing and coverage within decentralised health systems, strong commitment and capacity among local leaders is essential to mobilise and manage resources effectively.
- External constraints. Global vaccine price fluctuations, embargoes, and reductions in donor support highlight the need for resilient domestic resource mobilisation strategies. Through proactive and strategic planning, countries can maintain stable and sustainable funding streams for new vaccine introductions and safeguard the long-term success of immunisation initiatives.
Across all contexts, participants noted that the most persistent gaps are not only fiscal but also relational — in particular, weak linkages between ministries of health and finance, and limited advocacy capacity at subnational levels. Addressing these gaps requires stronger collaboration across sectors (health, finance, education) at both national and subnational levels and systematic use of local data to make the case for immunisation as an economic and social investment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE WORKSHOP
Across three days of peer exchanges and co-development sessions, countries identified several strategies to strengthen advocacy for domestic resource mobilisation and sustainable new vaccine introduction.
- Strategic advocacy is a deliberate and continuous process. Clear goals, defined decision-makers, compelling communication, and sustained engagement are essential.
- Evidence-based advocacy is fundamental. Countries that successfully advanced financing for NVI relied on local disease burden data, regional and global cost-effectiveness studies, and investment cases tailored to specific audiences — for example, health burden and productivity for ministries of health, fiscal efficiency for ministries of finance, and equity framing for legislators.
- Strategic stakeholder mapping sharpens targeted advocacy efforts. Understanding of decision-makers’ interests and level of awareness and identifying both formal and informal influencers or champions – from finance officials to parliamentarians, civil society, media, and professional groups – is instrumental in effectively reaching and persuading decision-makers. “Engaging champions across sectors — not just health — has helped us elevate sustainable financing for vaccines in national plans.” – St. Lucia delegation representative
- Tailored, concise messages resonate most effectively. Audience-specific messages, such as ‘Invest in HPV vaccination now to save lives later,’ helped overcome scepticism and mobilise support.
- Advocacy champions drive political buy-in. Champions, including parliamentarians, governors, and respected clinicians, played pivotal roles in advancing policy and financing commitments. The Philippines’ engagement of women parliamentarians to champion HPV vaccination is a notable example of the power of trusted voices.
- Subnational engagement is essential. As financing responsibilities devolve, local leaders’ commitment and budgeting capacity often determine immunisation outcomes. Experiences from the Philippines and Vietnam showed that empowering provinces and municipalities, with planning tools and through local ordinances, closes funding gaps.
Country delegations developed post-workshop advocacy and resource mobilisation action plans, including commitments to further support their peers. These plans address immediate priorities such as securing budget lines, expanding HPV and PCV vaccine introductions, and leveraging one-dose HPV schedules for cost savings.
The workshop demonstrated how countries move from sharing to shaping—co-developing advocacy strategies, mapping stakeholders, and crafting tailored, targeted messages. Vietnam, the Philippines, and St. Lucia translated peer insights into concrete post-workshop commitments. This underscores Linked’s unique role in facilitating collaborative learning that translates into actionable reforms to expand equitable immunisation access.
“We learned how to translate technical evidence into messages that speak directly to key decision-makers — fiscal efficiency for finance, health impact for ministries of health, and equity for legislators.” — Carmina Paz Vera from Department of Health of Philippines
COUNTRY HIGHLIGHTS
The participating countries adopted innovative strategies to mobilize domestic resources to advance NVI. The following highlights describe specific strategies:
Cuba committed to mobilising domestic resources for the HPV vaccine and is actively exploring local manufacturing options, despite ongoing embargo-related challenges, demonstrating Cuba’s determination to strengthen vaccine access and sustainability.
St. Lucia prioritised introduction of the PCV vaccine into its national immunisation schedule, using evidence-based advocacy and sustainable financing mechanisms.
The Maldives is allocating dedicated funds for vaccine delivery costs beyond procurement. By leveraging savings from adopting a one-dose HPV vaccine schedule, the Maldives can finance the introduction of the PCV and rotavirus vaccines.
Mongolia is strengthening its National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) and enhancing evidence generation to support rotavirus vaccine introduction and sustain HPV vaccine programme expansion.
The Philippines is deepening subnational engagement and advancing HPV vaccine scale-up, supported by strong advocacy from parliamentarians and civil society partners.
Vietnam aims to accelerate nationwide NVI by combining evidence on cost-effectiveness with targeted advocacy directed at provincial leaders.
MAINTAINING MOMENTUM AND MONITORING PROGRESS
To maintain momentum, Linked shared a comprehensive resource package following the workshop, including an immunisation advocacy toolkit with messaging guides (developed by PATH) and cost‑effectiveness templates. Countries participated in two virtual peer exchange meetings in November 2025 to assess progress, share challenges, and identify next steps.