The Roddenberry Foundation has announced the launch of +1 Health, a network-based initiative to bolster access to quality and affordable health care in sub-Saharan Africa.

The initiative is a partnership with the Valerian Fund and the Skoll and Vitol foundations in collaboration with local intermediaries, social innovators, and grassroots organizations. Initial investments will include support for 75 locally led, early-stage organizations targeting non-communicable diseases, pandemic prevention and preparedness, women’s and girls’ health, youth and adolescent health, and the social and environmental determinants of health. The first round of grantees, to be announced in May, will receive funds for capacity building, promotion to other funders, and entry into a cohort of peer organizations.

The +1 Global Fund—originally conceived in 2020 as a COVID-19 relief program—has used peer nominations across 45 countries to identify, invest in, and develop the capacities of historically overlooked and underfunded high-impact changemakers working with vulnerable and “last-mile” communities that are remote and hard to access.

“+1 Health will not only enable us to identify new locally crafted and owned initiatives, but explicitly receive partner recommendations from a peer network of implementers, rather than fellow funders, to better reflect local needs and opportunities from an implementers perspective,” said Vitol Foundation head of health Sarah Jeffery.

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Marco VDM)