4. A no-brainer!
• In Kenya, the targets of aid agencies include:
• Increase home-based and voluntary testing (PEPFAR and Global
Fund)
• Increase possession and use of insecticide-treated bed nets and
long-lasting insecticidal nets (President’s
Malaria Initiative and Global Fund)
• Testing and implementing clean water
technologies (USAID and CDC).
• What if all these separate activities were
implemented in sync?
5. Why it is hard to coordinate?
• Donor institution targets are tightly tied to specific diseases.
For example: “The goal of PMI is to reduce malaria-related
deaths by 50 percent in 19 countries in Africa that have a high
burden of malaria by expanding coverage of four highly
effective malaria prevention and treatment measures.”
• The US Global Health Initiative aimed to bring the various US
institutions involved in health aid under one umbrella. “We
cannot simply confront individual preventable illnesses in
isolation. The world is interconnected, and that demands an
integrated approach to global health.” Barack Obama, May
2009
• But the GHI lacked statutory or budget authority, and, to
date, failed to eliminate parallel structures in the major health
aid agencies
6. The challenge: getting past no-brainers
• A common fund for cross-agency priorities, managed by
the Global Health Diplomacy office…
• Funding specific aspects of ministry campaigns could
promote the breadth and ownership of ministry activities
while keeping donor priorities and outlays aligned.
• The google approach: dedicate 10-20% of funds to
develop creative (and disruptive) approaches to improve
global health.
Editor's Notes
On Monday, this foursome debated whether HIV aid was a good investment. Mead Over and Roger England, on the left, against the proposition, repeatedly emphasized that investments in clean water and malaria are better bargains for your health dollars. The implied suggestion was that better health outcomes would be achieved if the health aid portfolio were rebalanced. At the same time, the goals of the HIV community are to increase the number of people receiving ART, which would widen the gap between the allocation portfolio guided by the “best buys” and the allocation portfolio on the ground. This seems to be an irreconcilable tension, except that this panel has shown that there’s an approach that can makeall these people happy. An IPC would reduce costs *TO THE DONORS* to do what they are interested in doing anyways: increase testing, improve clean water access, distribute bed nets, and other high-value priorities.So why is it not being done?