[procaare] Allocate 15 Percent of Budget to Health, African Govts Told

["This Day" <procaare@healthnet.org>]

Allocate 15 Percent of Budget to Health, African Govts Told
This Day (Lagos): April 29 2008
By Abimbola Akosile
*********

African governments have been called upon to make good their pledge 
to allocate fifteen per cent of their national budgets to 
addressing health issues in their respective countries; in a bid to 
help boost development all over the continent.

Above call was made over the weekend by over 140 African and global 
organisations, led by the African Public Health Alliance (APHA) 15% 
Now Campaign; on the 7th anniversary of the African Union (AU) 15% 
Health Commitment, made in April 26, 2001 in Abuja, Nigeria's 
capital city.

The health coalition, which issued a statement and communiqué in 
Abuja on Sunday, said African Heads of State and Government must 
not revise or further delay implementation of AU Abuja April 2001 
15% Health Commitment.

In a campaign led Nobel Prize Winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who 
is APHA 15% Now Campaign Chairman, African leaders and Finance 
Ministers were urged to restate their fifteen per cent commitment 
at the next AU Summit in Egypt.

The coalition, whose members met recently in a conference in Abuja, 
lamented that a loss of over 8 million African lives annually to 
preventable, treatable or manageable health conditions is equal to 
43 transatlantic jets with 500 passengers each crashing every 
single day.

In its communiqué, the 15% Now Campaign also made a 7 point call on 
African Heads of State and Ministers of Finance. In a statement to 
mark the anniversary of the 15% pledge, Tutu stated, "the AU Abuja 
15% pledge is one of the most important commitments African leaders 
have made to health development and financing, and our Heads of 
State should strive to meet this pledge without further delay".

"The continued loss of millions of African lives annually which can 
be prevented is unacceptable and unsustainable. Our leaders know 
what they have to do. They have already pledged to do it. All they 
have to do now is actually do it. This is all we ask of them."

The Nobel Prize Winner underlined that, "while global health is a 
global responsibility, African leaders also have a moral 
responsibility to our people. Just as we expect the international 
community to honour their commitments to global health, we also 
expect African leaders to honour African commitments".

Coordinator of the 15% Now Campaign Rotimi Sankore added that, "it 
is a tragedy that we have to remind African leaders of their own 
commitment to invest public funds in Public Health at a time when 
we are losing over 8 million lives a year to preventable, treatable 
or manageable health conditions. This is the equivalent of 21,917 
lives lost daily or the equivalent of 43 transatlantic jets with 
500 passengers each crashing every single day."

"While we appreciate the concerns of some of our Finance Ministers 
that there are many issues requiring their attention, Africa's most 
important resource is its human capital and sustainable social and 
economic development is impossible with average African healthy 
life expectancy falling to less than 40 years".

To Sankore, "the more we postpone public health investment, the 
more it will cost us in the future. For instance, the cost of not 
treating TB to Africa between 2006 and 2015 would be $519bn while 
TB can be controlled with $20bn in the same period."

He emphasised that, "nothing can or should compete with public 
health. Dead people don't eat, dead people don't need education, 
they don't live in houses and do not require transport or 
electricity. African's must first be alive and healthy to enjoy any 
other rights. The African Union Commission has delivered on the 
Africa Health Strategy and other health policy frameworks and its 
up to our Finance Ministers to fund their implementation."

The 15% Campaign Coordinator stressed that poor reproductive and 
sexual health is at the core of Africa's high disease burden, and 
that HIV is primarily a sexual and reproductive health issue, and 
costs Africa 1.6 million lives annually.

"Poor reproductive health systems also impact greatly on infant and 
child health leading to 4.8 million child deaths a year, and over 
half of non disease maternal deaths globally are in Africa. 
Considering that TB is now the biggest killer of HIV positive 
persons, and malaria now has an increasing impact on maternal and 
child mortality. It is clear that without massive investment to 
rebuild our public health systems Africa may die out slowly and 
painfully," Sankore said.

To him, "training and retention of African health workers is 
particularly crucial. Medicines, as important as they are, do not 
diagnose illness, prescribe or dispense themselves, nor care for 
patients, health workers do".

The 15% Now Campaign called on fellow members of African Civil 
Society, the health and medical community, other sectors of society 
and global partners to join it in building the biggest continental, 
sub-regional, national and community based movement possible for 
ensuring that health development, financing and budgeting on a 
needs based basis and the 15% commitment is implemented as Africa's 
top social and economic development priority.

The key objective of the Africa Public Health Alliance and 15% 
Campaign is to engage the African Union, sub-Regional Economic 
Communities such as the East African Community (EAC), Economic 
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Southern Africa 
Development Community (SADC) etc., their institutions / member 
countries, and the African public.

Such engagement focuses on promoting greater awareness and 
understanding of African health issues; achievement of health based 
MDGs and universal access targets for prevention, treatment and 
care; adopting comprehensive health policies based on a public 
health rights and development philosophy; and mobilising and 
committing resources for sustainable implementation of health 
policies, including through meeting the 15% pledge.

The Alliance will also engage global stake-holders and actors 
including donors, the UN, EU and their institutions, World Bank, 
IMF, and international non-governmental Institutions and 
organisations especially those concerned with health, social and 
economic development.

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