Poor health gets new treatment
A new global initiative, drawing together more than half of all aid provided for healthcare, promises to save millions of lives by investing in health systems in the poorest countries.
The International Health Partnership (IHP), launched by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, is designed to cut child deaths, improve maternal mortality and fight major diseases. Seven ‘first wave’ countries will join the partnership – Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Cambodia and Nepal – which brings together the eight international health agencies and many of the major donors. The focus is on improving health systems as a whole and not just on individual diseases or issues. The intention is to provide better co-ordination amongst donors and to support developing countries’ own health plans.
“There is no greater cause than that every man, woman and child in the world should be able to benefit from the best medicine and healthcare,” said Gordon Brown, at the September launch. “Our vision today is that we can triumph over ancient scourges and for the first time in history conquer polio, TB, measles – and then with further advances and initiatives, go on to address pneumococcal pneumonia, malaria and eventually HIV/AIDS.”
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander outlined the myriad challenges facing developing countries’ health systems – from access to medicines or availability of clinics to having enough trained health workers and the need for predictable health budgets. In some sub-Saharan African countries, health spending per head is as low as £5, compared to £1,400 in the UK. There might be just one health worker per 1,000 people (the European average is one per 100). But once investment goes in, results follow: use of Zambia’s health services has increased by 40% since since it became cost-free in rural areas; in Burundi, the number of children receiving health care has nearly doubled since it was made free for under-fives last year.
“Global aid for health has doubled since 2000 and much has been achieved to fight disease and save lives,” said Mr Alexander. “But to meet the (Millennium Development Goals), aid is only a part of the solution. The donor community needs to work together better and more smartly in order to deliver for the countries we’re trying to help.”
While there has been good progress on some of the Millennium Development Goals, the health goals are “seriously off track”. Half a million women die every year in childbirth, 10million children don’t reach their fifth birthday and only one in four of those in Africa who need AIDS treatment can get it.
One key and ironic problem is that support from donor countries and international agencies sometimes fails because poor countries find it costly and time-consuming to deal with so many partners. The IHP is designed to ensure donors work more effectively together. Partners are also promising to give longer term aid and to make payments regularly – enabling poor countries to make longterm plans and budget properly. In turn poor countries have pledged to increase spending on healthcare and make sure that the poorest people can see a doctor or health worker without having to pay excessive fees.
“Six out of eight Goals and nine out of eighteen targets of the Millennium Development Goals are linked to health,’ said Dr Paulo Ivo Garrido, Minister of Health for Mozambique, an initial partner country. “The interventions needed to meet these targets call for interrelated health actions. Only robust and strengthened National Health Systems can properly deliver comprehensive and integrated health care in order to improve the health status of the population.” Oxfam’s Director Barbara Stocking said that the International Health Partnership (IHP), has the potential to save millions of lives, but only “if enough countries get behind it and if it mobilises additional aid to provide co-ordinated and expanded state health provision”.
Donor countries initially signed up to the International Health Partnership are: Norway, Germany, Canada, Italy, The Netherlands, France, Portugal. Agencies include: the World Health Organisation, European Commission, World Bank, UNAIDS, UNFPA, GAVI Alliance, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, African Development Bank, Global Fund To Fight HIV and AIDS, Tubercolosis and Malaria, and the UN Development Group.