Winner of the 2021 P3 Impact Award Announced

The Office of Global Partnerships at the U.S. Department of State, Concordia, and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Institute for Business in Society announced Salud Mesoamerica Initiative (SMI) as the winner of the P3 Impact Award at the 2021 Concordia Annual Summit. The award recognizes exemplary public-private partnerships (P3s) that provide solutions to societal challenges. 

Each year since 2014, P3s are celebrated for leading the way in providing innovative solutions to pressing issues in areas such as equitably reviving the post-COVID economy, improving access to education and quality healthcare, and utilizing emerging technology to improve lives while tackling climate change.

SMI is a public-private partnership between the Inter-American Development Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carlos Slim Foundation, the Governments of Canada and Spain, and eight Mesoamerica countries that is focused on the seven Central America countries and the State of Chiapas, Mexico. It was created in 2011 to reduce health inequities in light of achieving the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on women and children living among the poorest 20% of the population.

After a video presentation and open discussion with award nominees led by P3 Impact leaders—UVA Darden School Professor and Institute for Business in Society’s Academic Director Mary Margaret Frank, Concordia’s Senior Director for Partnerships Hanne Dalmut, and the Office of Global Partnership’s Managing Director Thomas Debass—a final decision was made by an esteemed panel of judges: International Development Finance Corporation’s Vice President of External Affairs Algene T. Safety, Visa’s SVP Global Head of Social Impact Beth Hurvitz, Accenture’s Growth Markets Managing Director Dan Baker, Public Private Strategies’ Founder Rhett Buttle, and Boston Consulting Group’s Partner and Director Veronica Chau. 

The U.S. Department of State’s Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Jose W. Fernández, gave remarks and announced SMI as the winner at the Concordia Annual Summit in New York alongside U.N. General Assembly week. 

Other 2021 award finalists recognized for their leadership in partnership included: 100,000 Strong in the Americas, Cambodia Rural Sanitation Development Impact Bond, Standard Microgrid and Zambian Rural Electrification Authority, and Beyond Extraction: Economic Opportunities in Mining Communities.

To learn more about each of the finalists  and the award, please visit: https://www.concordia.net/p3impactaward/.  

For further information, please contact the Office of Global Partnerships at partnerships@state.gov or visit https://www.state.gov/s/partnerships. For media inquiries, please contact Christine Johnson at JohnsonCL6@state.gov.