Competition for resources threatening health responses
29 May 2008
According to the Alliance, competition for scarce resources between supporters of disease-specific funding and wider health-systems strengthening is threatening the solidarity and partnerships that were built at the last Japanese G8 summit eight years ago, and threatening the effectiveness of global health responses.
Speaking at an international symposium in Japan in May, Alliance Executive Director Alvaro Bermejo called for the Toyako G8 summit taking place in July to build on lessons learned since the last Japanese G8 summit in Okinawa, which led to the creation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in 2002.
“Disease-specific funding and interventions and wider health systems strengthening used to go hand in hand,” he said. “We know that something different can be achieved when we build a social movement – a real partnership – that delivers resources.”
“This can be achieved when we deliver transparency and accountability – the hallmark of the Global Fund – and above all when we extend ‘national ownership’ beyond governments to include most affected communities, civil society organisations, and the private sector.”
“The Toyako summit must become another global health milestone, one that moves to focusing on achieving all the health Millennium Development Goals.”
“This must be built on the lessons learned from the control of infectious diseases since Okinawa; on the solidarity and the social movement that transformed the way we approached the AIDS response.”
The May meeting, From Okinawa to Toyako – dealing with communicable diseases as global security threats, was organised by the Global Fund, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Friends of the Global Fund Japan.
At the meeting, Keizo Takemi, Research Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, presented the results of the study Global Health, Human Security, and Japan’s Contributions. He recommended to G8 leaders that we should mobilise more sustainable funding for global health, and above all, integrate approaches to strengthen health systems – stating that disease-specific programmes require strong health systems, and vice versa.
