This document guides policy makers through complex policy options. It looks at access to medicines, trade and innovation together and the effect they have on each other over time and the challenges in the light of a number of developments over the past decade. In terms of manufacturing and product development, public-private partnerships are increasingly emphasised and partnerships for developing health products are ‘coming of age’. More attention is being paid to strengthening national health systems, with more funding for vaccine development and for immunisation. The relationship between public health, the intellectual property system, innovation and access to medical technologies are now better understood. Discussions on international public policy are better informed, and more soundly evidence based, allowing for more coherence across policies in health, trade and intellectual property.
Useful Resources
Most international external funders (external funders) are not publishing enough information about the money they give, undermining the effectiveness of development spending and damaging public trust, according to Publish What You Fund’s 2011 Aid Transparency Index. Major external funders - including the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Canada, Italy and Australia - perform poorly in the Index, despite repeated pledges to improve. The five best-ranked donors (external funders) are the World Bank, the Global Fund, the African Development Bank, the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. Publish What You Fund has expressed disappointment with the results, noting that most external funders are simply not providing enough good information about their aid. It argues that this lack of transparency leads to waste, overlap and inefficiency, impedes efforts to improve governance and reduce corruption and makes it hard to measure results. Publish What You Fund calls on all external funders to sign up to and implement the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), which provides a common standard for publishing data and has the potential to transform the way external funding is managed. It urges external funders to use the upcoming High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Korea (29 November – 1 December 2011) to commit to publish timely, comprehensive and comparable information on external funding by 2015.
BioMed, a major open-access medical research provider, has relaunched its website with a number of new features. These include: a redesigned homepage showcasing the most recent and popular published research; new-style journal homepages for the BMC series (e.g. BMC Biology, BMC Cancer); a revamped ‘My BioMed Central’ page, in which you can see the latest articles in your subject areas and easily manage email preferences and stored searches; an updated ‘My manuscripts’ page, with improved display of the status of all your submitted/published manuscripts, and any that you are currently reviewing or have reviewed; and revised ‘Institutional Member’ pages, which now show all articles from a Member institution, not just those from the last 12 months. Other improved features include an ‘Advanced search’ option with additional options for selecting and downloading search results, and subject gateways that offer a quick way to see the latest research from across BioMed Central’s open access journals on a particular topic, while regional gateways showcase research from particular countries.
Improving knowledge management in health systems is a priority of the platform Harmonization for Health in Africa (HHA). Building commonly shared knowledge is at the core of the philosophy of communities of practice. Those within the financing pillar - namely, "Performance-based financing", "Financial Access", "Public-Private Partnerships" and "Evidence-based Budgeting and Planning" are particularly active.
In recent months, their facilitators have found that some lively CoP debates are of broader interest and should be made accessible more widely. This blog was created as a platform to meet this need, to give greater visibility to our CoPs and contribute to consolidating their role and voice in health financing in Africa, to become the reference point for discussions on health financing in Africa.
BetterAid and the Open Forum have developed this toolkit for use in the run up to and during the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) (29 November-1 December 2011 in Busan, Korea) and the Busan Civil Society Forum that precedes it. The Toolkit is intended to support national advocacy and media activities, which can be conducted by concerned civil society organisations (CSOs). For CSOs, HLF4 is a particularly significant milestone as it marks the first time that CSOs will participate as full and equal stakeholders in aid effectiveness negotiations alongside governments and external funders. The objectives of this media tool kit are to: attract and focus media attention to effectively communicate the CSO perspective on aid and development effectiveness and reaction to the meeting outcomes to the widest audience possible; and support the lobby initiatives of CSOs with governments and official representatives on the Draft Outcome Document at the HLF4. The Toolkit has a number of templates that can be used and adapted according to national activities.
A laboratory that will research and monitor emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) such as yellow fever and dengue has been set up in East Africa in an attempt to tackle growing vector-borne health threats in the region. The Martin Lüscher Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases was launched with support from the German and Swiss governments at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya on 16 September 2011, and is expected to add capacity to respond to disease outbreaks. According to a researcher at ICIPE, the laboratory will improve risk detection, response capacity and research capability for key insect-transmitted diseases in Kenya and the region. It will also train MSc and PhD students under the centre's capacity building programmes.
This paper describes a new financial planning tool developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to assist low- and middle income-countries in scaling up a core set of interventions to tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs).The tool can be used to forecast resource needs at national and sub-national levels. It can enhance traditional budgeting mechanisms in countries and provide new information to development agencies about the resources needed to tackle the growing burden of NCDs. The tool has been used to produce a ‘price tag’ for a combined set of population-based and individual level ‘best buy’ NCD interventions that have been identified as priority actions by WHO. The average yearly cost for all low- and middle-income countries is estimated to be US$11.4 billion over the period 2011-2025. The cost per head of population is low, representing an annual investment of under US$1 in low-income countries and US$1.50 in lower middle-income countries. Expressed as a proportion of current health spending, the cost of implementing such a package amounts to 4% in low-income countries and 2% in lower middle-income countries. Population-based ‘best buy’ interventions address tobacco and harmful alcohol use, as well as unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.
Every Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Standard time, African Views Radio holds regular discussions on health care systems in Africa in a show called African Health Dialogues. The forum is accessible to online audiences live on air and also via podcast. There is also an opportunity for people to call in via phone to participate in the discussions from any part of the world. The first show aired on 30 July 2011 and explored the status of healthcare systems in Africa with respect to the past, present and future. The producers of the programme are inviting participants to call in and join the discussions.
The People's Health Movement Students' Coalition (PHMSC) is an international, broad-based students' movement representing students' voices within the wider People's Health Movement and beyond. Its primary goal is health for all, i.e. a socially conscious, grassroots approach to health and human rights. The mobilisation of students is crucial to overcoming social, educational, environmental and other injustices that undermine the indivisible health rights of people the world over. PHMSC invites all students and student organisations who believe in a healthier future for everyone (regardless of their background or where they come from), to join the movement. You can sign the People's Charter for Health, join PHMSC’s mailing list or join their Facebook group.
The World Health Statistics report is an essential resource for policy-makers and researchers working on the identification and reduction of health inequities. A dedicated section in the 2011 report presents data from 93 countries using three health indicators - percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel, measles immunisation coverage among 1-year-olds, and under-five mortality rate - disaggregated according to urban or rural residence, household wealth and maternal education level. The data presented refer to ratios and differences between the most-advantaged and least-advantaged groups.