International Health Policies in Lancet today – 27 – 7 August 09 0

By The Editorial Team · On August 7, 2009 · Add Comment

Dear Colleagues,

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This was a fairly busy week for the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Clintons. The former president stole the limelight in North-Korea, however for our purpose we obviously focus on Hillary’s current 7-nation tour in Africa. Lots of American mainstream media paid attention to the tour of the American secretary of state and American aid policy in the region in editorials and analyses. We included here a Newsweek analysis that compares Obama’s Africa policy with Bush’s (unfavourably, although it’s still early days), a news report by the KFF that focuses on Hillary’s frank speaking in Kenya (and the Obama administration focus on failed governance, welcomed by, among others, the WSJ). There is also a Houston Chronicle opinion article written by former US Senate majority leader W. Frist, in which he argues in favour of a holistic and integrated approach for global health aid. Finally we also focused on the current debate (through pieces in the Washington Post and Foreign Policy) on the difficult relation between USAID and the State Department, respectively the Pentagon.

In a section on health financing, Action for global health notified us of a KFF report that tracks donor funding for health in low&middle-income countries. David Mc Coy wrote an opinion article for the Guardian, in which he argues that the Gates Foundation should be subject to greater public scrutiny. The same newspaper also reported on Gordon Brown’s intention to back free health care for the world’s poor.

The Washington Post analyzed the health toll hidden behind the disastrous casualty figures of the conflict in Eastern Congo, with most of them indirect victims of the fighting. We also included a BMJ editorial on health systems and the increased longetivity in people with HIV and AIDS (which has thus become yet another chronic disease for many people), which makes for the potential to draw lessons from experiences in other chronic diseases. Finally, we also included the BMJ article on US health care reforms (halted until autumn) that we could not provide in last week’s newsletter due to technical problems.

Enjoy your reading.
Kristof Decoster on behalf of Wim Van Damme

US AID in Africa

1. Newsweek – The vision thing. Barack Obama’s plans for Africa are not nearly as ambitious as George W. Bush’s were.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/210665?from=rss

2. KFF – Clinton to meet with Somali President

http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2009/August/06/GH-080609-Clinton-In-Africa.aspx

3. Houston Chronicle – Improve world health care by increasing prosperity

W.H. Frist

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6555386.html

4. Washington Post – Leadership vacancy raises fears about USAID’s future

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080403373.html

5. Foreign Policy – Stop the Blanket Militarization of Humanitarian Aid