July 30th, 2008 at 10:01 am | posted by Virginia Simmons
Another video and post from ONE’s Tom Gavin from last week’s trip to Rwanda.
Monday, July 21:
The U.S. launched PEPFAR – the American global AIDS strategy – at the Masaka Clinic in 2004, so it made for a good place for the ONE delegation to visit and assess how things are going. Our delegation met with doctors, nurses, local officials, and patients seeking treatment and counsel from the clinic’s staff. We heard, time and again, the difference that America’s partnership in health care was making in Rwanda and throughout Africa.
The DATA Report, which ONE released earlier this year, shows the progress being made. It points out that, across Africa, nearly 2.12 million people were on antiretroviral therapy by last December, a huge jump from the 50,000 people on treatment in 2002. That means 30 percent of Africans in need of treatment are receiving it. But there remains a major challenge ahead. An additional 1.7 million Africans became infected with the HIV virus in 2007.
After touring the Masaka Clinic, some of the ONE delegation discussed the site visit and the overall trip with reporters.
July 10th, 2008 at 2:47 pm | posted by Ben Hubbard
African development was again the subject of G8 discussions as world leaders gathered in Toyako, Hokkaido in northern Japan from July 7-9 for the 2008 G8 Summit. While the G8 was confronted with multiple global challenges, including climate change and a weakening global economy, the 2008 Hokkaido Summit marked an important “mid point” moment in the fight against poverty. The Hokkaido Summit came at the critical halfway point to both the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the G8 Gleneagles promises to Africa. The G8 are dangerously behind on their landmark commitments to the region, having delivered only $3 billion of the promised $25 billion in additional assistance to Africa by 2010, according to the 2008 DATA Report.
After difficult negotiations, the G8 summit yielded small gains for the poorest. The bulk of G8 agreements on development and Africa and food security reiterated previous pledges rather than outlining new measures to get the group back on track. The G8 did announce plans for a new effort to tackle the global food crisis, though more details are needed to ensure its effectiveness and delivery. They highlighted the UN High-level meeting on the MDGs in September as an important opportunity to review progress and identify actions needed to overcome remaining challenges.
At a time when G8 credibility is at risk due to slow progress in delivering on commitments, there was a strong call for greater accountability in the G8 Communique. The G8 agreed to track progress against previous commitments in health, education, water and agriculture, as well as its compliance with anti-corruption measures.
Overall, the US, UK and Germany provided strong leadership in negotiations and have significantly increased their funding for Africa in recent years.
After the jump, the following brief overview of outcomes for Africa from the 2008 G8 Summit.
At past G8 summits, we’ve seen a number of landmark commitments on health – from treating and preventing infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS to improving health systems to eradicating Polio. In fact, it was at the G8 Summit in Okinawa, Japan (the last time Japan hosted the G8) that the initial seeds were sown for the Global Fund. The Global Fund has now saved more than 2 million lives by providing treatment and prevention for AIDS, TB and Malaria.
But eight years after the Global Fund’s inception, the fight against these infectious diseases, and delivering essential health services more generally, is being severely hampered by weak health systems and a critical shortage of health professionals. With this in mind, we’re asking the G8 to deliver a strategy for improving overall health conditions while continuing to vigorously fight infectious diseases. Here are ONE’s three top-line health asks:
1. Develop a time-bound action plan for delivering $100 billion for health: At the 2007 G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, non-US G8 members promised to provide $30 billion for AIDS, TB, malaria and health systems in order to match the United States’ $30 billion, five-year AIDS, TB and malaria program. That program, known as PEPFAR, will now be authorized at $50 billion over five years. Non-US G8 donors should build on the original spirit of the Heiligendamm commitment by providing a $50 billion match over the same five-year period, and improving the quality of these investments over the same time frame.
By the end of the Japanese G8 presidency, the G8 should provide a donor-by-donor timetable for delivering on this health commitment.
2. Set a numeric target for filling Africa’s critical shortage of health workers: G8 leaders should agree to funding an increase of at least 1.5 million additional health workers in Africa by 2015, with an interim target of at least 600,000 additional health workers by 2012.
According to the WHO, meeting major health-related MDGs, such as universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS, is “very unlikely” unless countries reach a minimum threshold of 2.3 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 1,000 population. In Sub Saharan Africa, this ratio translates to roughly 1.5 million additional health workers, including more than 800,000 doctors, nurses, and midwives.
3. Coordinate new and existing donor resources for health systems and health workers around national health sector plans. The G8 should agree to support the development of, and effective coordination of aid around, national health sector strategies. Assistance should be immediately scale-up in countries that already have rigorous national plans and a process should be developed to ensure all poor countries have the resources to complete donor-ready health sector investment plans.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:08 pm | posted by Virginia Simmons
At the end of last week, I posted excepts from a BBC News article about the high percentage of African doctors moving to more-developed countries. The piece cited a new study by Michael Clemons of the Center for Global Development (CGD).
A couple days ago, Dr. Clemons wrote a comment on the post, saying that he thinks the mainstream media misinterpreted the results of his study.
“Conventional wisdom says that, because low-income countries need skilled professionals to develop, their migration to better-paying countries is unequivocally bad… So the recent surge in the international mass migration of highly skilled workers has many worrying: will the loss of skilled professionals stymie development?
In this new working paper, CGD research fellow Michael Clemens uses new data on African health worker migration to test whether decreases in emigration raise the number of domestic health professionals, increase the mass availability of basic primary care, or improve a range of public health outcomes.
The results suggest that Africa’s generally low staffing levels and poor public health conditions are the result of factors entirely unrelated to international movements of health professionals, and that the option to emigrate has positively affected Africans’ decisions to enter the health field.
Bottom line: impeding the migration of skilled health professionals, by sending and receiving countries, does little to improve health systems or heath outcomes in Africa.”
I whole heartily thank Dr. Clemons for leaving his comment on the 14th, and hope he may accept my invitation to post on the ONE Blog in the future? We’d love to have your insights.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:20 pm | posted by Virginia Simmons
A new study shows that the “brain drain” of African doctors moving abroad to more developed countries may be worse than previously believed.
The study was done by the the Center for Global Development in Washington and looked at census records collected between 1999 and 2001. A recent BBC News piece details some of the core findings:
Several countries, including Mozambique and Angola, have more doctors in one single foreign country than at home.
And for every doctor in Liberia, there are two working abroad….
The report suggested the loss of doctors often went hand-in-hand with civil strife, political instability and economic stagnation.
The piece displays this chart, documenting the % of doctors in the following countries that move abroad:
NUMBER OF DOCTORS ABROAD
Mozambique - 75%
Angola - 70%
Ghana - 56%
Kenya - 51%
Rwanda - 43%
Sudan - 13%
Niger - 9%
The charity ActionAid said the brain drain was “a huge threat” to Africa.
“One of the best way to keep healthcare professionals in the countries that need them is to pay them properly - but currently health systems in many African countries are woefully underfunded,” said Nick Corby, policy officer at the charity.
“The UK government could do Africa a real service by upping aid levels for health systems, ensuring that desperately needed doctors and nurses stay where the need is greatest.”
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