H. Kong jobless rate rises in May–July '25    Egyptian pound opens flat on Wednesday    Contact Reports Strong 1H-2025 on Financing, Insurance Gains    Egypt expresses 'deep dissatisfaction' to Netherlands over embassy attack    Global pressure mounts as Gaza fighting intensifies and death toll surges    Egypt, India's BDR Group in talks to establish biologics, cancer drug facility    AUC graduates first cohort of film industry business certificate    At TICAD, Egypt's education minister signs pacts with Casio, SAPIX    Madbouly invites Japanese firms to establish industrial zone in SCZONE    Cairo, Tokyo sign LOI to expand educational cooperation, support for persons with disabilities    Egypt to tighten waste rules, cut rice straw fees to curb pollution    Al-Sisi meets Qatar PM, Bahrain security adviser to discuss Gaza crisis, regional stability    Egypt's FM, Palestinian PM visit Rafah crossing to review Gaza aid    Egypt prepares unified stance ahead of COP30 in Brazil    Egypt recovers collection of ancient artefacts from Netherlands    Egypt harvests 315,000 cubic metres of rainwater in Sinai as part of flash flood protection measures    Egypt, Namibia explore closer pharmaceutical cooperation    Fitch Ratings: ASEAN Islamic finance set to surpass $1t by 2026-end    Renowned Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim dies at 88    Egyptian, Ugandan Presidents open business forum to boost trade    Al-Sisi says any party thinking Egypt will neglect water rights is 'completely mistaken'    Egypt's Sisi warns against unilateral Nile measures, reaffirms Egypt's water security stance    Egypt's Sisi, Uganda's Museveni discuss boosting ties    Egypt, Huawei explore healthcare digital transformation cooperation    Egypt's Sisi, Sudan's Idris discuss strategic ties, stability    Egypt to inaugurate Grand Egyptian Museum on 1 November    Greco-Roman rock-cut tombs unearthed in Egypt's Aswan    Egypt reveals heritage e-training portal    Sisi launches new support initiative for families of war, terrorism victims    Egypt expands e-ticketing to 110 heritage sites, adds self-service kiosks at Saqqara    Palm Hills Squash Open debuts with 48 international stars, $250,000 prize pool    On Sport to broadcast Pan Arab Golf Championship for Juniors and Ladies in Egypt    Golf Festival in Cairo to mark Arab Golf Federation's 50th anniversary    Germany among EU's priciest labour markets – official data    Paris Olympic gold '24 medals hit record value    A minute of silence for Egyptian sports    Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban    It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game    Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights    Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines    Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19    Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers    Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled    We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga    Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June    Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds    Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go    Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



Funding a Global Health Fund
Published in Daily News Egypt on 21 - 03 - 2010

NEW YORK: World leaders will come together at the United Nations in September in order to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Three of the eight MDGs involve bringing primary health services to the entire world's population. A small amount of global funding, if well-directed, could save millions of lives each year. The key step is to expand the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria into a Global Health Fund.
The Global Fund was created in 2002 to help the world battle those three killer diseases, and its accomplishments have been spectacular, making it arguably the most successful innovation in foreign assistance of the past decade. As a result of Global Fund programs, an estimated 2.5 million people are on antiretroviral AIDS therapy. No fewer than eight million people have been cured of TB. And more than 100 million long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets have been distributed in the fight against malaria. In total, studies suggest that Global Fund programs have saved five million lives.
The Global Fund's remarkable successes result from its operational procedures. Disease-specific committees, called the Country Coordination Mechanism (CCM), are constituted in each developing country. Each CCM is chaired by the national government, but incorporates input from non-government organizations to formulate national-scale, disease-specific plans for submission to the Global Fund.
Once the Global Fund receives these plans, they are sent to a Technical Review Panel (TRP) to check that the plans are scientifically sound and feasible. If the TRP approves, the plan is sent to the Board of the Global Fund, which then votes to approve financing. Once the program gets underway, the Global Fund follows the implementation of the program, undertaking audits, monitoring, and evaluation. Since 2002, the Global Fund has approved around $19 billion in total funding.
There are two huge challenges now facing the Global Fund, and especially the donor countries that support it. The first is lack of financing. The Global Fund has been so successful that countries are submitting increasingly ambitious programs for consideration.
Unfortunately, the Global Fund is already in a state of fiscal crisis. It needs around $6 billion per year in the next three years to cover expansion of programs for the three diseases, but it has only around $3 billion per year from donor countries. Unless this is corrected, millions of people will die unnecessarily.
The second challenge is to broaden the Global Fund's mandate. So far, the Global Fund has addressed MDG 6, which is focused on the control of specific killer diseases. Yet control of these three diseases inevitably involves improvement of basic health services - community health workers, local clinics, referral hospitals, emergency transport, drug logistics - that play a fundamental role in achieving MDG 4 (reduction of child mortality) and MDG 5 (reduction of maternal mortality). All three health MDGs are interconnected; all are feasible with an appropriate scaling up of primary health services.
The obvious step to address MDGs 4 and 5 is to explicitly expand the Global Fund's financing mandate. Many programs, such as those in the Millennium Villages project, already show that a scaling up of primary health systems at the village level can play a decisive role in reducing child and maternal mortality. Expanding the Global Fund's mandate to include financing for training and deployment of community health workers, construction and operation of local health facilities, and other components of primary health systems could ensure the development of these local systems.
Many countries - including France, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States - have recently recognized the need to move beyond the financing of control of AIDS, TB, and malaria to financing improvements in primary health systems more generally. But they seem to view the issue of health-system financing as an either-or choice: scale up control of AIDS, TB, and malaria, or scale up financing of primary health systems. The truth, of course, is that both are needed, and both are affordable.
The annual cost of specific disease control in the next three years is perhaps $6 billion, and another $6 billion per year for health-system expansion. The total, $12 billion per year for an expanded Global Fund, might seem unrealistically large compared to the $3 billion per year spent now. But total annual funding of $12 billion is really very modest, representing around 0.033 percent (three cents per $100) of the donor countries' GNP. This is a tiny sum, which could be easily mobilized if donor countries were serious.
US President Barack Obama has been outspoken in support of scaling up primary health services, yet the specific budget proposals from his administration are not yet satisfactory. The worst of it is that the Obama administration's budget for the 2011 provides just $1 billion per year to the Global Fund. This small sum is unworthy of US leadership.
If the US would expand its annual support to the Global Fund to around $4 billion per year, it would likely induce the rest of the world's donors to put in $8 billion per year, keeping the US share at around one-third of total funding. To raise these extra amounts, the Obama administration could levy an excess-profit tax on Wall Street to make up the budget gap. Wall Street bankers, whose poor performance did so much damage to the world economy in recent years, and who still are reaping excessive bonuses, would also begin to make amends by seeing their new tax payments contribute to saving the lives of millions in the coming years.
Jeffrey D. Sachsis Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).


Clic here to read the story from its source.