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Scholars question benefits of aid in healthcare services
08 September 2008
Business Daily Africa
Nairobi: The G8 has been asked to move from the current model of government-to-government foreign aid for the health sector. It is not lost on observers that the beginning of the decade has seen a tremendous increase in the amount of government-to-government foreign aid specifically for health, with about 10 per cent of Africa’s health care expenditure being financed directly by aid.
However, it is becoming increasingly clear that this extra spending is having very little effect on health in the poorest parts of the world. Notably, very little progress has been made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals, and far too many people still pay out of pocket for health care.
This startling revelation is contained in a new report published by the International Policy Network (IPN), a UK-based charity on behalf of the Campaign for Fighting Diseases, a project that seeks to educate the public about the need for more market-oriented approaches to global health issues.
Titled Foreign Aid for Health: Moving Beyond Government, the report—authored by Philip Stevens, IPN’s policy director, who is also the co-coordinator of Campaign For Fighting Diseases — says that part of this failure to meet health-related Millennium Development Goals lies in the current model of official foreign aid, in which the governments of rich countries hand large sums of money to governments in poor countries, in the hope that it will be effectively spent.
“Unfortunately, corruption and other forms of mismanagement mean that very little of this money actually makes it to patient care”, the author argues.
The report suggests that instead of continuing the failing strategy of subsidising government provision of health services, donors should consider radical new approaches.
Keywords: Africa, donor aid, G8, health, MDGs
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