International Health Policies in the news today 86

Dear Colleagues,

< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

It’s not just the Nobel prizes that have been awarded this week, also global health watchers have been looking anxiously at the back-to-back replenishments of the Global Fund and GAVI. For the Global Fund, the upset was about as big as for the Chinese government today. A disaster. No more, no less. Even more so if you know that the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />US army spends 20 billion dollar a year on air conditioned tents in Afghanistan and Irak.

 

One can draw several conclusions from this fiasco. One is that the time is now for a financial transactions tax. The Broker has a special report on this sort of innovative taxing or ‘taxing global bads’. Another obvious conclusion is that global media should pay more attention to global health. The news that the Gates Foundation has entered into another media partnership, this time with ABC news, to do a year-long series on global health, is thus more than welcome. If you can’t beat them, join them. Yet another conclusion could be that maybe the G20 should pick up the baton. So far, China’s contribution to the GF has been rather stingy, but things evolve fast these days. Positive news is that Korea decided to put development on the agenda for the Seoul G 20 summit. 

 

Finally, the debate on the MDGs is still going on. This week, Peter Singer wrote an interesting opinion piece (in which he referred to Pogge) in the Guardian. Also Andrew Harmer’s blog post on what he called a classic global health debate, the one between Sachs and Attaran, is worth a read.

 

Enjoy your reading.

 

David Hercot, Kristof Decoster, Josefien Van Olmen, Basile Keugong & Wim Van Damme

Global Fund Replenishment

1. GF (press release) – DONORS COMMIT US$11.7 BILLION TO THE GLOBAL FUND FOR NEXT THREE YEARS

http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/pressreleases/?pr=pr_101005c

The official press release by the GF remains very diplomatic, as always.

2. KFF – Donors Pledge Nearly $12B For Global Fund, Missing Lowest Funding Target

http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2010/October/06/GH-100610-Global-Fund.aspx

KFF also features some early reactions from NGOs and activists on the replenishment. Most of them vent their frustration or even rage.

 

On Plusnews you can find some more reactions from civil society and others.

 

Science speaks has some American reactions on the US pledge of $4 billion.

 

And Humanosphere has this report on the likely impact of the replenishment disaster on El Salvador, a middle-income country. MICs might get hurt first by the lacklustre donor performance.

3. Globalhealthpolicy.net – Failing to replenish the Global Fund

Andrew Harmer;

http://www.globalhealthpolicy.net/?p=276

Harmer’s prediction of the replenishment was a bit optimistic, it turned out, but this blog post is definitely worth reading because it sketches a fourth, and (at least within the Fund) often unmentioned, scenario.

Global Health Financing

4. Globalization and health – Financing the Millennium Development Goals for health and beyond: sustaining the ‘Big Push’

Gorik Ooms , David Stuckler , Sanjay Basu  and Martin McKee;

http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/6/1/17

Thinking beyond the MDGs, our prolific colleague Gorik Ooms proposes a global social health protection fund. This fund would address recurring failures in the modern aid distribution mechanism. 

5. Lancet – Equity and adequacy of international donor assistance for global malaria control: an analysis of populations at risk and external funding commitments

Robert W. Snow et al; http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61340-2/abstract

The Lancet online features this article on the equity and adequacy of donor assistance for global malaria control. Although financing has increased since 2007, funding for malaria control worldwide is still 60% lower than the US$4·9 billion needed for comprehensive control in 2010.

6. Lancet – International donor assistance for health

Anne Mills ; http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61517-6/fulltext

Anne Mills comments on the abovementioned article by Snow et al. She sketches two typical problems when trying to draw conclusions from this sort of report.

 

 

7. Lancet – Financing of HIV/AIDS programme scale-up in low-income and middle-income countries, 2009—31

Dr Robert Hecht, John Stover, Lori Bollinger, Farzana Muhib, Kelsey Case, David de Ferranti;

http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61255-X/abstract

The aids2031 project modelled long-term funding needs for HIV/AIDS in developing countries with a range of scenarios and substantial variation in costs: ranging from US$397 to $722 billion globally between 2009 and 2031, depending on policy choices adopted by governments and donors. 

Global Health

8. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (Foreword): Innovative solutions to closing the health gap between rich and poor: a special symposium on global health governance

Lawrence O. Gostin & Emily A. Mok; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2010.00504.x/abstract

In its new issue, the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics features a number of articles on a special symposium on global health governance, that took place earlier this year. Last week, we already offered Devi Sridhar’s article, now we present the foreword by Gostin & Mok on innovative solutions to closing the health gap between rich and poor.

9. Lancet – Global health governance—the response to infectious diseases

Rose Gana Fomban Leke; http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61511-5/fulltext

Leke pleads for a mechanism that will enable coordination of aid for health at country, regional, and global levels, and coordination among partners and funders within a specific sector.

10.    CGD – Quality of Official Development Assistance Assessment

http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424481/

A new tool by people from CGD and the Brookings institution compares the quality of ODA for 31 countries and multilateral agencies and more than 150 aid agencies, and this on four dimensions: maximizing efficiency, fostering institutions, reducing the burden, transparency and learning. The US ranks near the bottom (one is tempted to say, as in many other rankings nowadays).

 

You can find the report here.

11.    CGD – Too Big to Succeed? Why (W)Hole-of-Government Cannot Work for U.S. Development Policy

Todd Moss; http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2010/10/too-big-to-succeed-why-whole-of-government-cannot-work-for-u-s-development-policy.php

Todd Moss sketches why a whole of government approach can not work for US development policy.

12.    Global Health Europe – Japan launches its global health policy

David Gleicher ; http://bit.ly/bEzIrm

The Lancet already referred to it a few weeks ago in a short article. And on October 1^st, Japan launched its own global health policy, called Embrace: Ensure Mothers and Babies Regular Access to Care.

13.    Lancet – Academic medicine must take its global role: the M8 Alliance of Academic Health Centers and Medical Universities

Mazda Adli, Sabine Kleinert, Stephen K Smith, Detlev Ganten;

http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61549-8/fulltext

Academic medicine should go global. A new M8 Alliance meeting is scheduled for next week, in Berlin.

14.    Sarah Boseley blog –  MSF launches attack on European Commission for blocking cheap drugs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/oct/07/aids-pharmaceuticals-industry

This post reports on the MSF attack on the EC for blocking cheap generic drugs from India. The EC is seeking a trade agreement with India which will restrict its generic companies from making cheap copycat drugs for poor countries, says MSF.