Beyond the Thermometer: A New Fund Tackles Asia's Climate-Health Crisis

NEW DELHI, India – August 25, 2026 – While headlines often focus on rising sea levels and record temperatures, the insidious creep of climate change into public health systems remains a dangerously underfunded crisis. Today, a formidable new alliance stepped into that gap with the launch of Nexa Lighthouse, a landmark initiative designed to finance and scale locally led solutions to climate-driven health threats across Asia and the Pacific.

Announced at the AVPN Global Conference 2026, the initiative is a strategic fusion of two powerful forces: Nexa, a global climate and health program co-led by Grand Challenges Canada (GCC), and The Lighthouse Fund, an established AVPN-led platform. By joining forces, they aim to channel significant capital—from US$250,000 to US$2 million per project—directly to innovators on the front lines of a warming world.

An Underfunded Crisis in a Vulnerable Region

The urgency behind Nexa Lighthouse cannot be overstated. The Asia-Pacific region, home to 60% of the world's population, is warming faster than the global average and is cited by the UN as the world’s most disaster-prone area. Here, more than four in five people face the compounded risks of floods, droughts, and storms. Yet, the health consequences of this environmental volatility have been largely ignored in global finance flows. According to The Rockefeller Foundation, a scant 0.5% of all multilateral climate funding is directed toward improving health outcomes.

This initiative targets three critical health threats that communities themselves have identified as paramount. The first is extreme heat. A 2023 heatwave across Asia was linked to over 85,000 deaths, with older adults, outdoor workers, and residents of informal settlements bearing the brunt. In countries like Thailand and South Korea, heat-related fatalities are becoming a grim new normal, exposing the vulnerability of health infrastructure unprepared for sustained high temperatures.

Second is the changing pattern of vector-borne diseases. Warmer, wetter conditions are expanding the habitats of mosquitoes, leading to a surge in diseases like dengue and malaria. Dengue, the fastest-spreading mosquito-borne virus globally, now threatens over half the world's population. The devastating floods in Pakistan in 2022, for example, triggered a fivefold increase in malaria cases, adding 2.1 million infections and demonstrating how a single climate event can overwhelm public health systems.

Finally, the initiative addresses the pervasive threat of poor air quality. More than 90% of Asia's population breathes air deemed unsafe by the World Health Organization, contributing to an estimated 4 million premature deaths annually. From industrial pollution in urban centers to transboundary dust storms exacerbated by desertification, toxic air is a leading environmental risk factor, with children being exceptionally vulnerable.

A New Model for Locally Led Innovation

Rather than imposing top-down solutions, Nexa Lighthouse is built on a philosophy of empowering local expertise. Its funding priorities were not decided in a distant boardroom but were shaped by the largest climate and health survey to date, which gathered insights from over 6,400 frontline health workers, scientists, and policymakers across 107 low- and middle-income countries. This community-driven approach ensures that capital flows to solutions that address real, on-the-ground needs.

This model builds on the proven track record of its founding partners. AVPN's Lighthouse Fund has already nurtured a cohort of innovators across Asia. In India, it supported Chintan’s development of an AI-driven mapping tool to identify households most vulnerable to heat stress in informal settlements. In the Philippines, it backed SORA, an organization using drones for AI-powered larval source management to combat mosquito-borne diseases more effectively. These are the types of tangible, scalable innovations Nexa Lighthouse aims to amplify.

The initiative will provide catalytic funding across two crucial stages. Early-stage 'Proof of Concept' ideas can receive initial backing, while more mature 'Transition to Scale' innovations are eligible for larger investments of up to US$2 million. This tiered structure provides a clear pathway for promising ideas to grow from local pilots into solutions with regional or even global impact, whether they take the form of a new technology, a service delivery model, or a public health process.

A Blueprint for Collective Action

Perhaps the most significant innovation of Nexa Lighthouse is its structure. The initiative represents a powerful blueprint for tackling complex global challenges by weaving together the strengths of public, private, and philanthropic sectors. It is co-led by Grand Challenges Canada, which is supported by the Government of Canada, and AVPN, Asia's largest social impact network. They are joined by a formidable coalition of funding partners, including the Bayer Foundation, India Health Fund, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Sanofi Foundation, and Temasek Foundation.

This multi-stakeholder model is designed to overcome the fragmentation and bureaucracy that have historically hindered climate-health financing. “Addressing the impacts of climate change demands bold ideas and strong partnerships,” said the Honourable Randeep Sarai, Canada’s Secretary of State for International Development. “Through our partnership with Grand Challenges Canada, Global Affairs Canada supports initiatives like Nexa Lighthouse that help innovators develop solutions to protect health and strengthen resilience across Asia and the Pacific.”

Leaders of the initiative emphasized that this collaboration is key to moving with the urgency the crisis demands. “The health effects of climate change are here, and the people most affected are already building solutions. What they need is capital and support that moves at their speed,” said Rahul Chandran, Chief Strategy and Partnerships Officer at Grand Challenges Canada. “Nexa Lighthouse changes that.”

Dhun Davar, Chief of Programmes and Deputy CEO at AVPN, echoed this sentiment, highlighting the importance of building on existing regional networks. “Asia and the Pacific will face some of the greatest health impacts of a changing climate, but the region is also home to innovators who are already developing solutions,” she stated. “Nexa Lighthouse builds on that work, bringing together new and existing partners to help promising climate and health innovations move from early ideas to solutions that can scale.”

With its first funding call set to open in October 2026, Nexa Lighthouse is poised to do more than just write checks. It aims to cultivate an ecosystem of resilience, proving that the most effective response to a global crisis often comes from the ground up, powered by local ingenuity and fortified by strategic global collaboration.