PHM-Exch> Petition: Call on African Heads of State to commit to Development Goals and Budgetary Targets.

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Anneleen De Keukelaere anneleen at phmovement.org


        African Heads of state will be attending an African Union Summit
this month in Uganda and the petition pasted below calls on them to commit
to Development Goals and Budgetary targets.

The petition can be signed by following the link provided below

www.petitiononline.com/july2010/petition.html

Please distribute the petition widely and publish it on your website,
facebook, blog and newsletters!!

Regards

PHM Global

*

To: African Heads of State during the AU Summit July 2010

Call for Commitment to Development Goals and Budgetary Targets

at the African Union Summit 2010, Uganda

Will the AU Summit 2010 taking place in Kampala, Uganda from 19 to 27 July
ensure the budgetary targets for development goals become reality?
*

A large proportion of the African population still lacks access to food,
education, safe drinking water, sanitation, shelter, land, natural
resources, employment and health care. Africa, many of whose states are
failing in meeting the Millennium Development Goals targets, still battles
with high maternal, child and infant mortality, HIV and Tuberculosis and
related diseases.

A failure in achieving progress in health and education is linked to the
neglect to address the social determinants of health such as education,
employment, water, sanitation, poverty and food security. Increasingly,
national efforts have focused on maximizing profits and implementing
policies that have had severe effects on health and well being of the
population. As a result public services often do not fulfill people’s needs
and past experiences such as structural adjustment programmes have led to
cuts in governments’ social budgets and increased health inequalities. At
the same time huge investments have gone into defence, mining and other
sectors with limited or lack of priority for sectors that determine people’s
health.

African heads of State have signed numerous development declarations
including the Dakar Framework for Action-Education For All:

Meeting Our Collective Commitments (2000); the Abuja Declaration on
HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Other Related Infectious Diseases (2001); the
Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security (2003); and Sirte
Declaration on Agriculture and Water (2008). In signing these declarations,
African Heads of State made a commitment to the people of Africa to improve
health, education, food security and reduce poverty. These declarations and
decisions, amongst other strategies, commit governments to allocate at least
20% of their budgets to education, 15% to health, 10% to agriculture and
0.5% to water and sanitation. These are not ambitious targets; for example,
the 15% target for health is realistic and some countries such as Malawi
have reached this target.

During the 3rd Joint Annual Meeting of the African Union and Economic
Commission for Africa Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and
Economic Development in Lilongwe, Malawi, 29-30 March 2010, Finance
ministers met to address progress towards the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) and in particular, realizing food security and employment. According
to a pan African analyst present at the meeting, national delegations from
South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt succeeded after heated debates in

deleting any reference to budgetary targets for education, health,
agriculture and water in the Common Position on MDGs and the conference
report and resolutions. Their action calls into question the extent to which
African finance ministers are committed to continental integration, the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the declarations and resolutions of
their own heads of state. It is evident that in countries where there has
been an increase in domestic public funding for key social services, health

outcomes have improved and therefore the development targets are a stimulus
for action and should not be seen as a constraint on budgeting. The
consequences of actions to delete budgetary targets in reports could result
in a reversal in allocating the promised percentages of national budgets to
health, education, food security and poverty alleviation, which could
further damage the credibility of African leaders in the eyes of African
citizens. Furthermore, it will weaken the power of African states to hold
the international community to their promised target of 0.7% of gross
national product to be allocated to development assistance and their
commitment to double such assistance to Africa. Health and wellbeing should
come before profit and we condemn any action that resists spending on
development such as the actions taken by the finance ministers.

In July the Heads of State will be meeting during the AU Summit in Kampala,
Uganda to discuss progress and state further commitments to these
declarations with a focus on ‘Maternal, Infant and Child Health and
Development in Africa’.

This petition is based on the need to guarantee and ensure concrete
budgetary targets will be adhered to and that governments need to prioritise
the fundamental rights of the population above other obligations.

The petition also acknowledges and supports action taken by the African
Public Health Alliance (APHA) and 15% Plus Campaign: ‘Africa Civil Society
Letter To July 2010 African Union Summit on Upholding African Health and
Social development Commitments.’.

This letter requests that the Heads of State should support the AU
Commission in working with governments and civil society to monitor and
report on health gains, and ensure a 10th year review of the 2001 Abuja
commitments by April 20111.

1 EQUINET Newsletter http://equinetafrica.org/newsletter/

It also acknowledges and supports the open letter to G8 ‘Meeting Promises
for Children of Africa, our future’, written by Civil Society

Forum On The African Charter On The Rights And Welfare Of The Child (ACRWC)
to urge them to meet their promises for external funding to African
countries, noting that countries have failed to fulfill their promise for
increased aid allocation to Africa. Similarly

we are concerned and disappointed at the funding allocated to Maternal
Health at the G8 meeting in June 2010.
*

We are calling on the Heads of State to adhere to their commitments to
development declarations and to ensure concrete budgetary targets will be
adhered to!

We are calling on the ministers of the relevant departments affected to
engage with their finance ministers to ensure that they undertake to meet
the related commitments!

We are calling on civil society to put pressure on their governments and in
particular the relevant ministers in different countries so that they
undertake to meet these commitments!
*

Please sign this petition following the link provided below to call on Heads
of State, ministers of relevant departments and civil society to ensure the
budgetary targets become real!! The petition will be shared with civil
society organisations in Africa to be used as a tool to influence national
governments.
*

www.petitiononline.com/july2010/petition.html

Community Working Group on Health

Centre for Health, Human Rights & Development

Regional Network for Equity and Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET)

HREP - Health N Rights Education Programme

SEAPACOH - The Alliance of Parliamentary Committees on Health in East and
Southern Africa
*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20100715/3f11306c/attachment.html>