Health warning: EU failing to meet the Millennium Development Goals
26 June 2007
European donor governments are failing to provide the funding needed to improve health in low and middle-income countries and achieve the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This is the ‘health warning’ a report from the Action for Global Health partnership (of which the Alliance is a member) will deliver in early July to the UK and EU governments and the European Commission.
The report, based on a review of funding being allocated to health in low and middle-income countries carried out by Action for Global Health, highlights:
- the inadequate progress achieved to date on the health MDGs in low and middle-income countries;
- the funding challenges that need to be overcome to ensure the health MDGs can be met; and
- the role that the UK and other European countries need to play to meet the health MDGs.
July 2007 marks the mid-point of the MDGs – a set of time-bound goals and targets agreed by world leaders in 2000 that aim to dramatically improve health and reduce poverty in developing countries by 2015. Halfway towards the deadline for meeting these goals, however, progress is well behind schedule. Of greatest concern are the health-related MDGs which are those furthest from being realised by 2015.
Among the targets failing to be met, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, is child mortality: sub-Saharan Africa is currently trailing behind other regions of the world with almost one in five children dying before the age of five. In addition, maternal mortality remains high; deaths from AIDS and new HIV infections continue to increase, as do the number of new tuberculosis cases, with many rises in the number of TB cases coinciding with areas of high HIV prevalence; and more than a million people continue to die each year from malaria, with 90% of deaths occurring in children.
The full report, along with recommendations to European donor governments will be launched in Brussels on 4 July. The UK partners of Action for Global Health (the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, TB Alert and Interact Worldwide) will hold a UK launch targeting key stakeholders in the UK government, including the UK’s Department for International Development, on 9 July 2007. For more details of the report launch, or to obtain a copy of the report, please contact: ukadvocacy@actionforglobalhealth.eu
Action for Global Health is a partnership of 15 NGOs working across Europe to increase European donor governments’ commitments to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
