Yonas Abiye
4 September 2007
Addis Ababa — Ethiopia is to sign a new health partnership with its development partners, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the signing partners announced on Monday.
Minister of Health Dr. Teodros Adhanom will sign the International Health Partnership with Ethiopia's international development partners on Wednesday at a ceremony to be held on Wednesday in London where British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is scheduled to the attend, the partners said in a joint statement.
"A delegation led by Dr. Tewodros Adhanom, Ethiopia's Health Minister, will leave for London today where he will speak at the launch, be photographed with Gordon Brown, and sign the agreement on behalf of the Government of Ethiopia," the joint statement said.
Meeting the press at the Hilton on Monday, Minister Teodros said the programme, which he said was designed to bring health services closer to the household was already achieving impressive results.
"Ethiopia is committed to ensuring that all of its people have access to primary health services by 2010 and is now rolling out a new Health Extension Programme," he said.
The minister said resources for health in Ethiopia were provided by donors and global funds as well as from public revenues but observed that, donor aid coupled with lack of manpower was a challenge as far as the health sector was concerned.
"Because donors have different - and often complex - rules and reporting requirements for the projects that they offer to fund, and because we don't have enough staff to manage projects in accordance with their rules and requirements, we can't actually make use of all of the funding that donors offer us for health," he noted expressing regeret that this was happening.
"This is a great pity, because we need all of that money - and more - in order to make sure that everyone in this country has access to vital health care services including skilled birth attendance, comprehensive emergency obstetric care, newborn care and family planning," he said.
Explaining why the Ethiopian Government sees value in joining the new health partnership, Dr. Tewodros said:"In Ethiopia we recognise harmonisation - which basically means the need to make aid more effective by supporting national plans rather than imposing external priorities and procedures - as a major challenge to the achievement of our objectives in health." The International Health Partnership will commit development agencies and donors and developing countries' governments to work more effectively together to speed up progress toward the
Millennium Development Goals for health, they statement said.
It further indicated that Ethiopia would be one of a small number of 'first wave' countries in which new ways of working will be piloted.
"In joining the International Health Partnership we expect important changes that will enable us to utilise a higher proportion of the aid that is currently available, demonstrate better health results, and, eventually, persuade donors to make much more money available for health in Ethiopia," Tewodros added.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will also sign. It is hoped that other donors and agencies will agree to join the partnership subsequently.
Partners to the Federal Ministry of Health, among others are, the International Health Partnership (IHP) including UK Department for International Development, Canada, Norway, Germany World Health Organisation, the United Nations Population Fund, UNAIDS, UNICEF and the World Bank they said they committed to work more effectively together for better health. On behalf of the international health agencies and bilateral donors, Paul Ackroyd, Head of the UK Department for International Development in Ethiopia, said that "We're now half way to 2015, and progress toward the three Millennium Development Goals for health is severely off track.
In Ethiopia almost a quarter of people lack access to even the most basic health cares services.
Despite the fact that thousands of mothers and children die of preventable causes, Ethiopia has a very good plan for health and is making spectacular progress against some of the biggest killers, Ackroyd, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique, Burundi, Mali, Nepal and Cambodia will be the 'first wave' partner countries to sign the new International Health Partnership agreement, the statement said.
Following the signing of a global level agreement at the UK Prime Minister's office in London on 5 September, individual compacts will be developed in each of the 'first wave' countries. IHP is the first step in a Global Campaign for the Millennium Development Goals for health and will be followed by complementary initiatives from both Norway and Canada in the next few weeks.
Norway slashed aid to Ethiopia following the expulsion of six of its diplomats from Ethiopia. It is not known if this would affect the health partnership in which Norway is an active member.
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