PHM-Exch> Africa: the 15% for health affair (2)

[Claudio Schuftan]

>From Rene Loewenson: rene at tarsc.org

After the Ministers of  Finance meeting in March there was a major advocacy
initiative by health civil society in Africa and engagement with
parliamentarians to ensure  no reversal on the 15% commitment. (see for
example editorials in the recent EQUINET newsletter on this and the joint
statement from about 150 civil society orgs sent by the 15% campaign that
EQUINET inputted to that states the issues). Civil society also went to
Kampala to engage at the conference. The restatement of the 15% by the heads
of state is an important signal that despite the comments from the Finance
Ministers there is no reversal on this. The concerns that the Ministers of
Finance had need to be interrogated and responded to, without losing the
aspirational target. Further we all recognise that the 15% from government
own spending (ie excluding external funding) while a sign of prioritisation
is not a sign of adequacy and we are also raising the demand for adequate
per capita levels on health (figures of $60 are being cited as a basic level
for health system vs the $34 for the basic interventions from the
Macroeconomic Commission on health), for a reasonable share of GDP to health
(5% is being cited) and of course for equitable, PHC oriented allocation of
the resouces.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20100821/360874cd/attachment.html>