Ndubuisi Ugah
2 April 2007
Lagos — The conference of African Finance, Planning and Economic Development Ministers', which opened in Addis Ababa yesterday, will come to an end today as health among other fundamental issues was described a sector to move the continent forward in the modern time.
Making the appeal in a statement made available to THISDAY, the Coordinator of Africa Public Health Rights Alliance (APHRA) and its "15 per cent Now" Campaign, Rotimi Sankore said: "It is disappointing that in a conference dedicated to meeting the MDG's, not a single agenda session is specifically dedicated to details of financing the resolution of Africa's public health catastrophe".
Sankore, who explained that "neither the detailed 2007 Conference Annual Report, nor the 2006 Overview of Economic and Social Developments in Africa dedicate a single chapter or section to Public Health", said "it is embarrassing that we even have to look within the sections to find the references to HIV".
He further emphasised that: "Human beings are the major resource for economic and social development. On a continent where over 8 million citizens die annually from preventable, treatable or manageable health conditions, it will be impossible for the Ministerial conference to come up with any realistic strategies to meet the MDG's without introducing and placing at the top of their agenda, the financing of Public Health Strategies to tackle major killers like Maternal Mortality, Child Mortality, HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria amongst others".
He therefore, called on the ministers "to In the name of Africa, follow the example of countries like Botswana that has announced allocation of over 20 per cent of its budget to health and dedicate the conference to working out urgent mechanisms to implement within a two to three year frame work the Abuja Commitment of Heads of State to allocate 15 per cent or more of national budgets to Health.
"Even if it means reducing the defence budgets that routinely soak up to 20 per cent to 35 per cent of annual budgets it has to be done. Africa is short of about a million health workers and the only armies we need right now are armies of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals".
It would be recalled that APHRA was launched on December 10 2006, which coincides with the celebration of the International Human Rights Day as the first alliance to articulate Public Health for Africa as a rights and development issue across Africa and beyond. It brings together actors from various key sectors of civil society.
The alliance, which has Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner as the honorary chair with 35 other groups making up the alliance, whose campaign strategy is based on the premise that "we all have to be alive and well to exercise any other rights in any meaningful way" and therefore that Right to Health and to Healthcare is arguably the most crucial right of all as articulated by both the constitution of the World Health Organisation and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Also, the key objective of the Alliance 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 towards: 1) Promoting greater awareness and understanding of African Health Issues and; 2) Adopting Comprehensive Health Policies based on a Public Health Rights and Development philosophy-and mobilising and committing resources for sustainable implementation.
The Alliance will also engage global stakeholders and actors including donors, the UN, EU and their institutions, World Bank, IMF, and international Non-governmental Institutions and organizations especially those concerned with health, social and economic development.
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