International health: beyond the year 2000. Project selection. Many needs, few resources

With the tightening of health budgets in developing countries and aid donor allocations, the question of setting priorities is again at the forefront of policy issues. The luxury of letting a free market in health projects flourish cannot be afforded. This article reviews some of the major proposals for setting such priorities set out in recent years and argues for additional criteria to be applied, as well as the essential role of a new international mechanism to bridge the gap between the world of health research and service needs in the field. With some modest leadership in this area, the 1990s could be a time of major broad-based achievements in international health.