The Salud Mesoamerica Initiative (SMI) is a public-private partnership between the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carlos Slim Foundation, the Governments of Canada and Spain, and eight Mesoamerica countries.  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 reaching 1.8 million women and children living among the poorest 20% of the population in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Because these countries’ national averages showed positive health results but substantial equity gaps, the initiative was specifically designed to eliminate these gaps in infant, neonatal, and maternal health, and improve access to quality health care through the implementation of an innovative results-based financing model – to date, the $132 million provided by donors have leveraged $44 million in domestic financing from beneficiary countries. Due to its success, the initiative was extended in 2015 and 2020 to further improve and consolidate gains on health outcomes. 

Learn more about what makes the Salud Mesoamerica Initiative (SMI) so innovative in the UVA Darden School of Business’s Ideas to Action article.