Health
Minister Heads WHO Committee On Emergency Financing
Nigeria’s
Minister of Health, Professor Babatunde Osotimehin
has been appointed to chair the committee on
financing for Health Research and the establishment
of a public health emergency fund for Africa.
The appointment followed the looming gap in funding
of the activities of the World Health Organization,
(WHO), budgetary appropriation in Africa.
Nigeria was honoured to take up this challenge
during the recent meting of the WHO African regional
conference in Kigali, Rwanda.
At the Conference, Osotimehin called for an urgent
need to address the dwindling funding of WHO
activities in the continent.
The committee comprises of Health Ministers from
Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast,
Lesotho, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa and
Nigeria.
The Challenge
There has
been a grave concern over the issues of maternal
mortality and the H1N1 pandemic among others, which
have been recognized as suffering from lack of a
clear source of international funding as in the case
of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria (GFATM).
Way Forward
Deliberating on the need for the Public Health
Emergency Funds for Region and modalities for its
establishment and implementation mechanisms, the
Health Ministers emphasized the urgent need for this
intervention following the sparse allocation of the
regular annual budget of the African Regional Office
that are designed for specific programmes and cannot
be utilized for other programmes.
They also agreed that the public health needs of the
African Region and the current global financial
meltdown makes the establishment inevitable as this
would address the looming funding gap in coming
years.
Funds Modalities
The Committee also considered that in establishing
the Fund, there should be flexibility in determining
which programme areas the funds could be utilized
for and the percentage of the Fund that could be
committed to a specific programme.
This was in recognition of the fact that public
health priorities change over time. It was
understood that the Fund should basically constitute
additional funding for targeted priority areas.
The fund, it was agreed would be developed based on
voluntary contributions, mandatory payments by
countries, and contributions from donor
organizations and development partners.
PR/ Qasim / Ahaziah