Subtitle: This blog is co-authored by Gina Lagomarsino, Managing Director for Results for Development, and Simon Wright, Head of Child Survival for Save the Children UK This week in Geneva, the global community has gathered for the Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly. As we recently passed the 1000 day count down to the end of the current Millennium Development goals. The post-MDG framework is at the forefront of this year’s Assembly. Over the past three years, UHC has been gaining traction as an overarching framework for the post-2015 development agenda. In 2010, The World Health Organization (WHO) published the World Health Report on Health Financing.
For not remitting Nigeria’s counter-part fund for the treatment of TB, HIV/AIDS and malaria on time, Global Fund officials met the Federal Government where they raised the issue before President Goodluck Jonathan, warning that Africa may not meet the MDGs if Nigeria fails in achieving the goals. via allAfrica.com: Nigeria: TB, HIV/Aids, Malaria Fund – [...]
There’s nothing like an impending meeting with the author to make you dig out your scrounged review copy of his book. So I spent my flight to Boston last week reading Limits (sorry the full title is just too clunky). And luckily for the dinner conversation, I loved it. Limits is about why change doesn’t happen,
“Twenty of the world’s most troubled countries have made progress in efforts that range from reducing poverty to improving the education of girls and cutting down on the deaths of women in childbirth, the World Bank said on Wednesday” in a new report (.pdf), Reuters reports. Each country has met the requirements for at least one Millennium Development Goal (MDG), while “[a]nother six are on track to meet the goals by the deadline in 2015, with the progress visible in part due to better data collection and monitoring,” the news agency notes, adding, “Data gathered in 2010 and earlier had found none of these states had met any of the MDGs” (Yukhananov, 5/1). “The 20 fragile and conflict affected countries which have met one or more targets are Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Comoros, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Kiribati, Liberia, Libya, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sudan, Syria, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, and West Bank and Gaza,” according to a World Bank press release, which notes Nepal is the only country among the list to have met the MDG for maternal mortality. The analysis is based on the Global Monitoring Report’s data, the press release states (5/1).
MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders) recently posted a set of three animated videos about child vaccines as part of their latest advocacy campaign. The first one, titled “We Need Better Tools to Save Lives” is pretty straightforward – it’s a basic explanation of what is needed to vaccinate children, how MSF struggles to fill that need, and a quirky analogy about what it is like to not have that need filled. Simple enough. The second video is a lot more direct.
I’ve been good friends with Claire Melamed for ages, but recently we’ve found ourselves on opposite sides of the post-2015 debate. As ODI’s growth andinequality supremo, Claire is deeply immersed in the ever-proliferating discussions, whereas I decided early on that I had massive reservations about the whole process. So for your amusement (and who knows,
By Pierre Massat (ITM, Quamed) Last Friday the Belgian Directorate General for Development Cooperation (DGD) organized a conference entitled “Development Cooperation in the Health Sector: Still the same approach ?” While the goal was mainly to discuss how the Belgian development cooperation in the health sector should adjust to the differences between low-income countries, fragile states and (a growing number of) middle-income countries, the conference protagonists also used the occasion to take a critical look at today’s development cooperation in general in Belgium. Two speakers were invited: Dr. Georges Dallemagne, member of the Chamber of Representatives (CDH), former Director-General of Handicap International, former Vice-Director-General of MSF), and Prof. Dr. Bruno Gryseels, Director of ITM.
“With the globally agreed target of reversing the incidence rate of malaria by 2015 now in sight, top United Nations officials [on Thursday] urged the international community to stay committed to protecting people from this preventable disease and to scale up key interventions such as the provision of insecticide-treated mosquito nets,” the U.N. News Centre reports, noting April 25 marked the annual World Malaria Day, with this year’s theme, “Invest in the future. Defeat malaria.” In statements, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Financing the Health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and for Malaria Ray Chambers, and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Executive Director Mark Dybul all stressed political will, financial support, and continuing cooperation to beat malaria, according to the news service (4/25).
April 24, 2013 The Gates Foundation is hosting the first Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi that will bring together the world’s leaders and propel progress towards vaccine coverage. The Summit, focused on the power of vaccines, is being held during World Immunization Week (April 24-30) to continue the momentum of the Decade of Vaccines – a vision and commitment to reach all people with the vaccines they need. Ending polio is a critical milestone in this vision. Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will deliver a keynote to celebrate progress and honor the individuals, communities, partners and nations that have made success possible. The speech will be webcast live at www.globalvaccinesummit.org.
“When in the year 2000 African leaders first decided to put a Malaria Day on the calendar of the world, the ravages of malaria were barely visible to global decision-makers in prosperous countries,” Fatoumata Nafo-Traor, executive director of the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership and a former minister of health in Mali, writes in the Huffington Post’s “The Big Push” blog. “African leaders’ Abuja commitment to tackle malaria set in motion events that were to change the fate of millions,” she continues, highlighting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the global partnership to Roll Back Malaria. She adds, “Today the malaria map is shrinking,” and she provides some statistics. “But the gains that have been made so far remain fragile. The push to roll back malaria cannot afford to stop here,” she states.
Kate Elder and Jennifer Cohn from Médecins Sans Frontières question why new vaccines are so expensive. Global health leaders will gather in Abu Dhabi on April 24-25 for a Vaccine Summit to discuss recent accomplishments and seek ways to expand the impact of childhood vaccination under the Decade of Vaccines (DoV), an initiative for collective action announced by Bill Gates at the 2010 World Economic Forum. Promoting greater affordability and accessibility—key tenets for increasing immunization coverage—should be at the top of the agenda. The past few years have brought many positive developments, with childhood vaccination now saving an estimated 2-3 million lives each year. But huge gaps remain. In 2011, over 22 million children—20% of the global birth cohort—did not receive the full WHO-recommended package of basic vaccines. Teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) see the consequences of these gaps every day in the children we treat—among refugee populations, people caught in conflict, or in more routine settings of maternal and child health clinics.
Noting there are “less than 1,000 days until the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” Zach Silberman, a policy associate with the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, writes in the coalition’s blog, “One thing is for certain: the MDGs galvanized the global community to work together towards improving the lives of those in the developing world and represent a significant step towards a more global approach to development.” He notes “the role of partnerships is increasingly important for any future goals — and those struggling to cross the 2015 finish line,” and continues, “Make no mistake: the next 1,000 days will be crucial for achieving and sustaining the MDGs. It is also the time when the world will decide upon the next round of goals, and the United States has the opportunity to be a leader in the process” (4/22).
