Health warning: Europe must allocate sufficient funding for health Millennium Development Goals

27 July 2007

Marielle Hart, Stop AIDS Alliance, at the launch. © Stop AIDS Alliance, 2007

On 9 July, Action for Global Health, of which the Alliance is a partner, launched its first annual policy report Health Warning: Why Europe must act now to rescue the health Millennium Development Goals. The report calculates that, to meet the health Millennium Development Goals, the European Union and European countries including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain need to allocate 15% of their official development assistance to health. Action for Global Health is calling for Gordon Brown’s UK government to act now and show leadership within Europe to provide better healthcare for all.

Marielle Hart of Stop AIDS Alliance, Brussels, said, “We are issuing a major health warning to Europe to start acting now. At the current pace, we won’t reach the Millennium Development Goals until the year 2282. Health is at the heart of development. We are significantly off track with the Millennium Development Goals. Health is a basic human right for all citizens of the world, not according to where you are born.”

In 2001, the Commission for Macroeconomics and Health estimated that $27 billion was needed as health Official Development Assistance from donors by 2007 rising to $38 billion by 2015. Currently levels are well below that and Action for Global Health is calling for the US $27 billion to be in place by 2009, to get back on track.

Responding to Health Warning, Stewart Tyson, Head of the Health Advisory Group at the UK Department for International Development, agreed: “We need more and better aid. The UK Government is committed to the Official Development Assistance target of 0.7% of Gross National Income.” He also added that investing in areas other than health can also affect the health Millennium Development Goals – nutrition and education, for example.

Health Warning is the first in a series of policy reports by Action for Global Health. It was launched in the UK at the House of Commons, hosted by Neil Gerrard MP and Chris McCafferty MP, Chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on HIV/AIDS and Population, Development and Reproductive Health. There were presentations from Dr Stewart Tyson, Marielle Hart, and Felicity Daly of Interact Worldwide.

For more information about the report, or about Action for Global Health, please contact Elaine Ireland.