Toward a World Where All Children Grow Up Free From Lead Exposure

Summary

In 2024, USAID, UNICEF, Open Philanthropy and other partners, committed to launch the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future. Through this initiative, an initial $150 million in flexible, catalytic donor funding will be deployed globally toward lead mitigation projects in developing countries through 2030. This first-ever global public-private partnership aims to accelerate lead mitigation standards and policies and action plans to phase out lead from consumer products and other sources to create a world free from lead exposure. The partnership will build critical capacity in areas of awareness raising, advocacy, testing, monitoring and evaluation, and regulatory guidance all aimed at achieving a lead-free future for the billions of children alive today and for those yet to be born.

Approach

USAID and UNICEF commit to launching the first-ever global public-private partnership, the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future (PLF) , dedicated to tackling toxic lead exposure at-large in developing countries, with founding partners spanning national governments, bilateral donors, international organizations, philanthropies, the private sector, and civil society organizations.

In order to achieve the overall vision of a world in which all children grow up free from lead exposure, the PLF will serve to:
1) Champion country-led efforts to end childhood lead poisoning in low- and middle-income countries, including the generation of action plans to phase out lead from consumer products and to ensure safer industrial stewardship of lead.
2) Accelerate the development, adoption, and enforcement of lead mitigation standards and policies by providing a platform for exchange of successful practices and strategies, innovations, awareness campaigns and public outreach materials, resources, and technical assistance.
3) Foster key partnerships across sectors and key stakeholders within and across countries to facilitate equitable and sustained progress toward a lead-free future for every child.

Through this initiative, approximately $150 million in flexible, catalytic donor funding will be initially deployed toward lead mitigation projects through 2030. Through Open Philanthropy’s four-year collaborative donor fund, the Lead Exposure Action Fund (LEAF) , $104 million of this funding will be allocated to the end of 2027; the remaining funding will be from other donors and allocated over the course of five years, through 2030.

Core focus areas for this support will include:

Building government capacity by:
1) Providing advocacy and technical support to governments to recognize childhood lead poisoning as a serious concern, and to develop coordination mechanisms to address lead exposure.

Measurement. Standardize measurement methods and define the extent and sources of lead exposure in focus LMICs by:
1) Integrating lead testing into national surveys.
2) Identifying sources contributing to elevated blood lead levels.
3) Improving methods to measure the prevalence and sources of lead exposure.
4) Evaluating the success of efforts to eliminate lead from different sources.

Mitigation. Directly reduce the level of lead exposure by:
1) Addressing tractable and recognized sources (particularly spices and paint) in partnership with national governments.
2) Developing and testing mitigation strategies for other important, but potentially less tractable sources (cosmetics, batteries, metallic cookware, etc) .

Illustrative activities, which could be implemented with this support include:
1) Developing a formal protocol for blood lead level (BLL) testing, run a large BLL survey in a select country, and enable other countries to scale BLL testing in the future.
2) Establish a new research institute focused on lead exposure. Initial projects may include the development of a repeatable standardized protocol to distinguish between different sources of lead exposure, and a project to identify and mitigate the most important sources of lead exposure in select countries
3) Ending adulteration of spices with lead in sub-regions of high burden countries where they are suspected to be a major source of exposure.
4) Developing regulatory guidance to improve the rate of safe battery recycling in select regions.

The partnership will also provide critical non-programmatic functions to increase the return on investment of donor funding, such as acting as a central knowledge and resource hub; serving as a coordination mechanism for stakeholders; and catalyzing proactive strategies for lead reduction.

Action Plan

The PLF will act as a one-stop-shop for critical coordination functions, including: providing high-level policy advocacy to national governments; channeling resources and information to members and other stakeholders; facilitating and supporting country-level activities; and supporting donors to channel resources strategically to partner countries. This is modeled after the UN-led partnership recognized as a key driving force behind the eradication of lead from gasoline. Initial support for these activities will be from Open Philanthropy’s four-year collaborative donor fund, the Lead Exposure Action Fund (LEAF) , which will be allocated to the end of 2027; the remaining funding will be from other donors and allocated over the course of five years, through 2030. Concerted fundraising efforts will continue following the PLF launch to support the longer-term goal of ending childhood lead poisoning by 2040.

The PLF agenda will be implemented through multiple stakeholders with diverse areas of expertise. With the launch of the PLF, partners include government stakeholders for over 15 countries, six multilateral and global finance partners, 12 NGO partners, and over 12 foundation and private sector partners. The global tracking of the agenda will provide information on annual progress against the milestones established until 2040. Partners will be expected to participate in quarterly meetings to update on progress against PLF targets, and to share emerging best practices and evidence for addressing lead exposure.

Background

Over the past few years, the world has achieved outsized impact fighting lead exposure in developing countries at manageable costs and accelerated timelines. The Government of Bangladesh eradicated lead from spices in two years at a cost of less than one penny per person. A small NGO de-risked the largest paint manufacturer in Malawi to switch to lead free alternatives, with the rest of the industry to follow shortly, and a $4,000 paint study was instrumental in mobilizing the Government of Madagascar to enforce regulations on lead in paint. This effective, and cost-effective, work tackles a significant problem affecting one in two children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) , compared to one in twenty children in the U.S. at the peak of the Flint, MI crisis. Lead exposure is estimated to kill over 1.5 million people each year, account for up to 20% of the gap in educational outcomes between high- and low-income countries, and create at least a $1.4 trillion drag on global GDP.
Despite the scale of these harms and the tractability of the problem, donors spend only $15 million each year tackling this key environmental health problem. There is an enormous opportunity to build off recent proof points and deliver lead mitigation solutions at scale.

Progress Update

Partnership Opportunities

Addressing global lead exposure is considered a “best buy” in development for partners interested in contributing financial resources that will achieve outsized and cost-effective impact. Beyond this, it is widely recognized that lead exposure is a neglected problem due to lack of awareness among policymakers, donors, and the private sector, underscoring the need for additional media support. Moreover, the lead exposure space will require the building of implementing partner capacity to absorb the stepwise increase in resources reflected in this commitment, which can be provided by partners expanding their missions to include lead mitigation implementation. Members of PLF can benefit from and contribute to best practices and topical expertise that can be shared with policymakers., The partnership includes multi-laterals, donors, country governments, industry, NGOs, and academia. A combination of partner efforts will ensure progress on national ownership and leadership of the agenda, capacity development, source mitigation strategies and surveillance. UNICEF will serve as the PLF secretariat, responsible for day-to-day coordination of activities, communications, knowledge management, convening, and other administrative functions to benefit countries where lead levels are highest. This includes compiling best practices for sharing and conducting advocacy that may include media campaigns. In addition, the PLF secretariat will play a role in matching available donor resources to support countries in advancing their lead action plan priorities.