On 27th November, Action for Global Health together with the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria and the European Parliament Working Group on Innovation, Access to Medicines and Poverty-Related Diseases organised a lunch debate on “Health financing in ACP countries” on the side of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly ACP-EU in Addis Abeba. The event gathered 50 participants, mainly parliamentarians from African, Carribean and Pacific countries.
The meeting was opened by Member of European Parliament Patrice Tirolien, who underlined that health was at the centre of the development concept: “If there is commitment to financing health, the economic crisis should not be an excuse for our government to weaken their funding towards social sectors. Political commitment means pushing through even when there are financial hurdles”.
Fanny Voitzwinkler of Global Health Advocates, member organisation of the Action for Global Health (AfGH) network and Secretariat of the EP Working Group on Poverty-Related Diseases presented the outcome of the AfGH 2013 report on Trends in Official Development Assistance. She raised the question: Who pays for health? and showed that on average in developing countries 30% of health expenditure comes from out of pockets payments, meaning from people themselves. The report also finds a significant decline in ODA by main European donors, who are drifting further away from the 0.7% target.
Svend Robinson updated the participants on the replenishment process of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria (GF) and presented their New Funding Model. He underlined the importance of including key affected populations in every health response at national level. He mentioned the crucial role of parliamentarians in carefully examining the negotiations of trade agreements that can harm people’s access to essential medicines.
The event concluded three days of plenary meeting between ACP and EU parliamentarians who discussed development aid from a broader political perspective, especially in light of increasing investments from China in the region. Many African parliamentarians explained why they thought Chinese investments were more beneficial because they are linked to less conditionalities. This debate definitely poses a broader question: is EU aid efficient and is it welcomed? In this regard, Svend Robinson from the Global Fund underlined that China only contributed with $14 million to the Global Fund for the next 3 years, next to hundreds of millions from other big European donors. While China’s investments have been very prominent in terms of infrastructure on the African continent, does it have any impact on health and social benefits for its population?
Generally AfGH’s ODA report was very much welcomed by the participants. For more information on Action for Global Health ODA tracking methodology and infographics on outcomes of the report, please see here
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