Blog Contributor:
Lisa.Fleisher
Aug 10th, 2009 8:18 PM UTC
By Lisa.Fleisher
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Earlier today, Secretary Clinton signed a landmark agreement with Angola aimed at combating HIV/AIDS. This new “partnership framework” emphasizes a ground-up approach and lays out a five-year plan in which the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) will support health priorities laid out in Angola’s HIV National Strategic Plan.
Here are a few key excerpts from Secretary Clinton’s remarks on the agreement:
“This framework represents a new approach to our government’s fight against HIV/AIDS. It emphasizes a bottoms-up approach tailored for and by the country we are assisting. It represents an expansion of local capacity and health care systems that can last over time. It represents long-term planning and more intensive pursuit of prevention. It represents the use of measurements to assure effectiveness and accountability. It will allow for greater coordination among the many parties involved in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS. And finally, it will place greater attention of the affect of HIV/AIDS on women.”
“I am pleased that, thanks to the very swift work between the minister of health and the global AIDS coordinator, we are going to more than double funding for PEPFAR in Angola.”
While Angola is already a PEPFAR focus country, through this new agreement, the U.S. and Angola will work together to strengthen health systems; improve monitoring and evaluation; bolster HIV prevention activities (particularly mother-to-child transmission); address TV/HIV co-infection; address discrimination issues; encourage testing; and promote the people living with HIV/AIDS in all levels of planning and implementation.
Funding will reportedly increase from $7 million to $17 million.
-Lisa Fleisher
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Aug 6th, 2009 6:09 PM UTC
By Lisa.Fleisher
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Later today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will land in South Africa (the second stop of her 11-day trip to Africa) and meet with leaders to discuss the issue of HIV/AIDS, an epidemic that has hit South African particularly hard.
Approximately 6 million people are currently living with HIV in South Africa—more than any other country in the world. Women make up the largest number of those infected, but rates are high for children, too (nearly 300,000 children are infected). Tuberculosis (TB)—the leading cause of death in South Africa—is responsible an estimated 13 deaths every hour.
South Africa’s response to HIV/AIDS began early in the pandemic: the first AIDS Advisory Group was formed in 1985. And while the government has occasionally been criticized for its response to the epidemic, the past five years have seen consistent increases in HIV/AIDS funding. By 2011, domestic financing is scheduled to reach nearly $1 billion a year, but concerns linger over what effects the current recession (the first in 17 years) will have on the upcoming health budget. Observers remain cautiously optimistic that the new health minister, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, will follow in the strong footsteps of former health minister Barbara Hogan.
Donor financed health initiatives have played an important role in South Africa’s efforts to provide HIV prevention, care, and treatment services to its people. The country is one of the 15 focus countries for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), receiving nearly $600 million in 2008. Looking ahead, Eric Goosby, the new head of PEPFAR, said that focus countries should expect to see a greater emphasis on prevention, country partnerships and strengthening health systems.
Since 2002, South Africa has also received $228.6 from the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS and TB—and this aid, combined with that from PEPFAR and other donors, appears to be working, as the number of people living with HIV under the age of 20 has dropped. But as the global financial crisis threatens to overturn this progress, continued U.S. support for these programs is critical.
Stay tuned to the ONE blog for further updates on Secretary Clinton’s travels through Africa.
-Lisa Fleisher
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Jun 16th, 2009 4:45 PM UTC
By Lisa.Fleisher
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A new report by Save the Children UK released today argues that reductions in child mortality can be accelerated if regular, predictable transfers of cash, or cash transfers, are provided to households or individuals by the government. Unlike traditional welfare programs, cash transfers in this case are conditional upon parents seeking and receiving certain services for their children. If children do not regularly attend school or get regular check-ups at health clinics, the cash transfer program will not pay out.
Cash transfers work to break down one barrier to families’ ability to access social services, namely the cost of the service. By addressing the ‘demand-side’ of issues related to alleviating poverty, cash transfer programs offer a complement to the ‘supply-side’ interventions which focus on increasing the availability of health, education, and nutrition services and programs.
The Save the Children report offers the following five recommendations:
- Maternal and child benefits should be an integral part of child survival efforts in countries experiencing high rates of maternal and child mortality. Targets for expanding coverage should be set by the government in a way that makes sense for their national budget and administrative capacity.
- Cash transfers should be implemented in combination with other policies and programmes.
- Equity should be incorporated into the existing MDG framework so that the poorest and marginalized are not left behind. Reporting statistics on whether the poorest groups are receiving services intended for them should happen routinely.
- The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health should include child and maternal benefits in the package of interventions it recommends for the Countdown to 2015 countries.
- On the donor side, social protection programs – including cash transfers – should receive increased investment.
-Lisa Fleisher
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Jun 12th, 2009 6:06 PM UTC
By Lisa.Fleisher
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Today in Lecce, Italy, several donors fulfilled their promise to commit $1.5 billion to fight pneumococcal disease, which includes pneumonia, and is one of the biggest killers of children in developing countries around the world. In 2007, Finance Ministers from Canada, Italy, Norway, Russia, and the UK, gathered in Rome with the GAVI Alliance, the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and WHO and pledged to adopt an innovative mechanism to finance vaccines for pneumococcal disease called Advance Market Commitments. Today that pledge became reality.
Every year, pneumococcal disease kills 1.6 million people, more than a million of whom are under five years of age. Pneumonia, the most common form of pneumococcal disease kills one in four children in developing countries, making it the primary cause of death among young children. A vaccine for these diseases could save millions of lives over the coming years.
A vaccine for pneumococcal disease has existed since 2000, and is already part of routine vaccinations for children in developed countries. However, there is not an affordable vaccine for developing countries. The AMC frontloads financing for the vaccine so that once it is available, it will cost developing countries $3.50 per dose instead of the $70 per dose it costs in developed countries. Over the past two years, the donors involved in the AMC have been working to finalize the legal, financial, and regulatory components of the project. Today, the AMC became fully operational.
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and panel member at the launch of ONE’s DATA Report yesterday, said “This innovative new model will mean faster access to vaccines for millions of children in poor countries. It’s a great example of how innovation and technology together can produce life-saving advances and make them available to people who need them around the world”.
For more information, read the press release from GAVI Alliance.
-Lisa Fleisher
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Jun 7th, 2009 8:57 AM UTC
By Lisa.Fleisher
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On Monday, we noted that the Munk debates program would feature a discussion about foreign aid and we encouraged those who watched to post their thoughts and reactions. ONE’s Policy Advisory Board member Paul Collier, along with Stephen Lewis, Dambisa Moyo, and Hernando de Soto talked for almost two hours about the opportunities and challenges of foreign aid. The purpose of the Munk debates is to “enliven and elevate public discussion of the political, social, and cultural issues shaping the course of the world’s events and Canada’s future.” This goal was certainly accomplished – the debate participants engaged in a lively discussion about their thoughts on how and why foreign aid has affected Africa and what are the best ways to reduce reliance on donors to finance programs. Exchanges like this are helpful to educate people about foreign aid and the array of perspectives about it.
While there was disagreement between the two ‘sides’, represented by Moyo and de Soto, arguing that aid does more harm than good, and Lewis and Collier, arguing the opposing view, there was common ground. The debate participants agreed that African countries cannot continue to rely on foreign aid to the extent they are now, that strong leadership and good governance are critical to transitioning from aid dependence, and that aid has had mixed results over the past 60 years. There was also agreement on the importance of the private sector in economic growth, through investment and job creation.
The audience voted before and after the debate on whether foreign aid does more harm than good. The outcome? The majority of people do not believe that aid does more harm than good. This means that both before and after the debate, the majority of the audience believes that aid does more good than harm. Before the debate, 61% of the audience voted ‘against’ the principle that aid does more harm than good, compared to 59% of the audience who voted after the debate. The opposing side, who believe aid does more harm than good, had 39% of the votes before the debate and 41% afterwards.
What do you think? Watch the webcast and let us know.
-Lisa Fleisher
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Jun 5th, 2009 4:30 PM UTC
By Lisa.Fleisher
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The World Health Organization’s expert advisory panel on immunizations announced today that all children should receive a vaccine that can prevent a severe type of diarrhea and vomiting caused by the rotavirus.
Every year, 600,000 children die from severe diarrhea caused by rotavirus around the world. Although most of these deaths occur in developing countries, rotavirus also afflicts children in the developed world. In the United States, 55,000 children are hospitalized because of rotavirus infections every year.
Research to determine whether the rotavirus vaccine is safe and effective in countries with high child mortality has proven successful: cases of severe diarrhea were reduced after administration of the vaccine. Funded by the GAVI Alliance, and conducted by PATH, WHO, and GlaxoSmithKline, as well as many research institutions in South Africa and Malawi, this research “clears the way for vaccines that will protect children in the developing world from one of the most deadly diseases they face,” said Dr. Tachi Yamada, President of the Global Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
As one of the diseases that causes the greatest number of deaths and illness in the developing world but receives little attention and resources, the prevention and treatment of diarrheal diseases is a priority area for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Their work involves funding research to determine the causes of diarrheal disease in developing countries, supporting the development of a vaccine, including the rotavirus vaccine, and efforts to develop medicines and other treatments for diarrheal disease.
Delivering the rotavirus vaccine with a package of other essential interventions including improving water and sanitation to children in need in Africa and Asia will be critical for reducing child mortality.
<em>-Lisa Fleisher</em>
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May 29th, 2009 5:28 PM UTC
By Lisa.Fleisher
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The Swedish and Dutch governments announced today that they will suspend $33 million in aid to Zambia following reports about embezzlement in the Ministry of Health. Reports indicate the civil society was calling for the Ministry of Health to publish expenditures, but former President Mwanawasa cancelled the spending reports, which may have led some officials to siphon funds for their own use. In response to concerns that the lack of funding will affect the delivery of health services, the Minister of Finance Musokotwane stated that the Zambian government will develop a plan to fill the gap and investigate the corruption charges.
The transparent publication of spending by donors and governments is a critical component of ensuring money for development is used as effectively as possible. Like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, the Swedish and Dutch governments’ response to reports of embezzlement in the health sector suggests their support for the idea that well-governed programs are critical to successful development and that aid can help to encourage transparency and accountability.
-Lisa Fleisher
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