Rich nations should pay more to developing countries
By Fiona Fleck, Geneva
The World Health Organization called this week for more resources to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria and to improve maternal and child health in a global push to halve extreme poverty by 2015.
The appeal to wealthy nations came a day after the Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs delivered a report to the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, entitled Investing in Development, about how to salvage efforts to achieve the millennium development goals. Interim reports published in September showed that the world will fall far short of most of the goals to reduce poverty and improve health in developing countries by 2015.
Professor Sachs, who directed the three year UN Millennium Project, made proposals on how to get the goals back on track. Three of the eight development goals (about child mortality; maternal health; and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases) relate directly to health. The others relate indirectly to health, such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and ensuring environmental sustainability, which includes providing sanitation and clean water.
In a parallel report on the health related goals, WHO said that investing in proved solutions would turn the tide to achieve the goals. The organisation called on wealthy countries to increase their development aid, if they have not yet done so, to 0.7% of national income by 2015.
"We have the means to achieve those goals. We have the technology," said Dr Lee Jong-wook, director general of WHO. "What we need are the resources and the political will."
WHO called for a massive scaling-up of existing health programmes and for substantial new investment in the public health infrastructures of the world's poorest countries. It said that more investment was needed in human resources to stem the brain drain of doctors and nurses.
In sub-Saharan Africa, increasing staff shortages are jeopardising a global effort to deliver antiretroviral treatment to the three million people who need it by the end of 2005. WHO will publish a progress report on this "3 by 5" programme on 26 January.
More resources are needed to strengthen health systems to make it possible to deliver antiretroviral treatment to patients with HIV/AIDS as well as treatment and medicines for tuberculosis and malaria, and to deliver better antenatal care to improve maternal and child health, the global health agency said.
For further information see www.who.int/mdg and www.unmillenniumproject.org
studentBMJ 2005;13:45-88 February ISSN 0966-6494
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Responses published this month
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Articles
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NEWS
Rich nations should pay more to developing countries
Fiona Fleck (February 2005)
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Etienne Laverse
(February 07, 2005)
Read this response
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NEWS
Rich nations should pay more to developing countries
Fiona Fleck (February 2005)
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Etienne Laverse
(February 07, 2005)
Medical Student, Imperial College London etienne.laverse@imperial.ac.uk
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Rich and developing nations can both do more:
"The WHO called for substantial new investment in the public health infrastructures of the world's poorest countries." "More resources are needed to strengthen health systems, to make it easier to deliver antiretrovirals."1 These are all part of a global acknowledgement that poverty must be tackled in earnest.
In Zambia, debt repayments to the International Monetary Fund cost $25m (£13m, Euro 19m) more than the budget for education.2 Examples such as these have led over 100 UK charities and other organisations to issue a joint demand that "rich countries should increase aid, cancel world debt and change the rules of world trade so that they favour the interests of the poor."2
Project leaders of the UN millennium project, which was unveiled this year, call for "a decade of bold action"3, saying that high income countries must open their markets to developing country exports and should help the poorest countries to raise export competitiveness through investments in infrastructure, trade facilitation and science & technology. Furthermore the report also highlights the role that developing countries must play, for example, the report says that "The African Union should promote regional trade and cross-border infrastructure and that increased international support should go to countries that have demonstrated good governance."
With practical commitments by both sides, the health problems that plague the developing world, such as the high rate of fatal communicable diseases and lack of medicines might be improved. Real changes are starting to take place; Gordon Brown (British Chancellor) has already pledged international debt relief for the poorest countries. And such measures are crucial for global health and stability, as Professor Sachs (director of the UN millennium project) says, "When people lack access to medical care, safe drinking water and a chance at a better future, their societies are likely to experience instability and unrest that spills over to the rest of the world".3
- Fleck F. Rich nations should pay more to developing countries. studentBMJ 2005;13:48.
- Eaton L. Charities and rock stars join forces to tackle world poverty. BMJ 2005; 330:59.
- www.unmillenniumproject.org
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