The International Health Partnership Launched Today
5 September 2007
 Image courtesy of
Dieter Telemans/Panos Pictures
A new international partnership was launched today that will help
build national health systems in some of the poorest countries in the
world. It will mean healthier people, living longer lives. Prime
Minister Gordon Brown, International Development Secretary Douglas
Alexander, Ministers from developing countries and donor countries, and
leaders from all of the major health agencies and foundations, launched
it today at 10 Downing Street.
The International Health Partnership aims to improve the way
that international agencies, donors and poor countries work together to develop and implement health plans, creating and improving health services
for poor people and ultimately saving more lives.
Seven ‘first wave’ countries in Africa and Asia today announced that
they would join the new International Health Partnership, which is
supported by donor governments and agencies representing half of the
world’s aid spending on health, which totals $14 billion.
The seven in the first wave are
Burundi,
Cambodia,
Ethiopia,
Kenya,
Mozambique,
Nepal and
Zambia. These
countries have agreed that they would benefit from closer donor and
international partner coordination as they work to improve the health of
their people.
Donor countries and agencies that signed today’s partnership
agreement are:
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Key facts on health |
Spending on health per person per year:
- UK average: £1,400
- Sub-Saharan Africa: £5
- World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommended
minimum: £17
|
Health workers:
- WHO’s recommended minimum is five health workers per 2,000
people
- In some countries there is only one health worker per 1,000
people
- In Europe there are ten per 1,000
- Global shortage of health workers will be 4 million by
2015
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The coordination problem:
- there are more than 40 bilateral donors
- 26 UN agencies
- 20 global and regional funds and
- 90 global health initiatives
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20% of UK direct aid to countries goes to health =
£515 million a year
Total DFID health spend is close to £800 million – this
includes money we give to agencies, the UN and Civil Society |
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Secretary of State
Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander, said :
“Global aid for health has doubled since 2000 and much has been
achieved to fight disease and save lives. But to meet the MDGs aid
is only a part of the solution.
“The donor community needs to work together better and smarter in
order to unburden the very countries we’re trying to help and better
support poor countries’ own priorities.”
Listen to the full message from Douglas
Alexander (846
kb) Transcript
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The global health challenge
2007 marks the mid-point of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) – promises made by the world’s richest countries to make poverty history by
2015. The Prime Minister set out the global challenge in a
 speech to the United
Nations in New York on 31 July 2007.
Three of the MDGs relate directly to health.
They pledge us to:
Much has been achieved, for example:
- aid for improving the health of the
world’s poor has more than doubled to $14 billion;
- child deaths from measles
each year have halved since 1999; and
- polio, which paralysed more than 350,000
children in 1988, is on the verge of being eradicated.
However, the three health MDGs are the least likely goals to be met by 2015.
Every day:
- more than 10,000 people are infected with HIV;
- more than 22,000 become sick
with TB;
- 28,000 children under five die; and
- one mother dies in
childbirth every minute.
Yet we can prevent many of these deaths with simple, affordable measures. In
addition to ensuring access to food, education, clean water and sanitation,
access to basic health services is critical to reduce the death toll from the
major killers including malaria, AIDS, respiratory illness and complications in
childbirth.
For more on the health challenges, and about progress so far, see
the health facts and figures page.
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The need for donors’ support to improve
 Image courtesy of Trygve Bolstad/Panos Pictures
Donors need to work better together to improve our support to poor countries.
First, global health assistance is over-complex, with many different
health partnerships and international organisations providing aid – currently
there are more than 40 bilateral donors and 90 global health initiatives. Their
support comes through separate aid channels, leading in many cases to fragmented
health provision on the ground and a reduction in the effectiveness of much of
the aid. They also compete for limited trained staff, and can function outside
the recipient countries’ priorities and structures.
Secondly, countries find it costly and time consuming to deal with so
many partners. For example, Zambia’s health system has support from 15 major
international partners, all of whom expect separate reports, meetings and time –
time that would be better spent building the health system than on managing
donors.
Thirdly, not enough focus has been put upon building strong
sustainable health systems in poor countries. Impressive results have been seen
combating HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria
(MDG6) but other health issues, such as the health of
children and
women (MDG 4 and 5) and support for
building stronger health systems (by training doctors and nurses, building
clinics or providing basic health services to ensure healthier people, living longer
lives) receive less attention.
For examples see
the health facts and figures page.
Complementary initiatives by other donors and organisations are addressing
specific barriers to progress for the health priorities of developing countries,
such as poor maternal and child health and insufficient donor coordination.
- Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and the British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown highlighted this issue in a
joint
statement on 22 August 2007.
- On 26 September, the Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, will
announce renewed international efforts on
child and
maternal health (MDGs 4 and
5).
See
the Norwegian Government's press release.-
‘Women Deliver’ is a major
global conference that will focus on creating political will to save the lives
and improve the health of women, mothers and newborn babies around the world.
Supported by DFID alongside other international partners, it will be held on
18-20 October at the ExCel Centre in London.
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How the International Health Partnership will improve Health
The International Health Partnership (IHP) encompasses all of the health MDGs.
It is a new agreement between donor countries, developing countries and
international health agencies and foundations that aims to ensure all partners work
better together and that they direct their support to the priorities identified in
the national health plans of poor countries.
The IHP aims to make health aid work better for poor countries and accelerate
progress by doing three things:
- providing better coordination among donors;
- focusing on improving health systems as a whole and not just on
individual diseases or issues; and
- developing and supporting countries’ own health plans.
Donor countries and agencies are working towards providing longer
term and more predictable funding to poor countries. This will mean that
poor countries are better able to make long term plans, in the knowledge
that they will have the resources to train new doctors and nurses, pay
their salaries, provide medicines and build and maintain clinics and
hospitals.
Developing countries will strengthen their planning and accountability
mechanisms and show more clearly how external support has led to
improvements in health.
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Next Steps
A detailed design phase will now follow over the next few months, during
which time individual compacts will be worked up with each of the partner
countries.
Links
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