; Whereas weak health systems that fail to prevent unnecessary deaths also lack the staff, health facility infrastructure, and medical technologies required for effective care delivery and disease containment, placing all countries at increased risk of pandemic disease; Whereas essential medical technologies, such as diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines for diseases that affect the global poor, are frequently unavailable or inaccessible to health systems in developing countries, because— (1) investing in research and development of technologies for diseases that disproportionately affect the global poor is often unprofitable for pharmaceutical corporations; (2) costly intellectual property licensing fees from originator companies to generic manufacturers frequently leave the global poor unable to purchase or access medical technologies; and (3) originator technology companies often refuse to share or license intellectual property to generic manufacturers, which results in limited supply and high prices, as was the case with the COVID–19 vaccine; Whereas, according to the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health, preventing most avertable deaths and conferring essential universal health coverage in low- and lower-middle income countries requires an increase in annual health systems resources in those countries of $75,000,000,000 and $293,000,000,000 (in United States dollars as of 2016), respectively; Whereas, historically, the United States and other global North-supported global health programs have inadvertently entrenched standards of care in low-income countries that would be unacceptable in rich countries by funding only health services narrowly defined as sustainable , cost-effective , or appropriate in poor settings; Whereas the effectiveness and efficiency of current United States overseas development assistance for health is often undermined by— (1) misalignment with the national health plans of the host country