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Sustainable Health & Development - Keynote

 

Panel 1: The Components of Global Health Security, MNCH, and Infectious Disease Agendas, is Integration Possible?

 

Panel 2: Changing the Infrastructure of Global Health, Exploring South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable Health and Development

 

Panel 3: 15 Years of Collaborations: Champions and Partnerships

 

Panel 4: Decreasing Complexity to Encouraging Private Sector Investment in Health

 

Panel 5: Private Sector Mobilization

 


In 2014 GHD brought together key stakeholders for its Post-2015 Infrastructure for Development Conference to highlight the future of global health architecture, identify forthcoming challenges, and promote best practices among a wide variety of sectors and communities. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) now before us, GHD aims to reunite key stakeholders in continued discussion of financing mechanisms, multilateral cooperation, technological advances, past successes, and cross-sectoral coordination. By convening top experts and leaders for discussion on these five topics, the conference aims to catalyze change at the political, policy, and technical/implementation levels. GHD will closely facilitate each of the five discussions so as to build on the momentum and outcomes of the previous session and help move the conversation forward towards action.

 

------------------------------------- AGENDA --------------------------------------

7:30 am - 8:00 am
Breakfast

8:00 am
Keynote Speaker
Michel Sidibé
Executive Director of UNAIDS

8:30am - 9:55am
The Components of Global Health Security
MNCH and UHC is Integration Possible?

10:15am - 11:30am
Exploring South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable Health and Development
Sharing Successful Practices, Gaps, and Opportunities 

LUNCHEON CELEBRATION


12:05 pm - 1:00 pm
15 Years of Collaborations: Champions and Partnerships
Recognizing the Leaders and Programs which have Generated Change During the Millennium Development Goals

1:00 pm - 1:50 pm
Decreasing Complexity to Encourage Private Sector Investments
in Health

A Discussion with Donor and Emerging Market Governments and CEOs from the private sector - working in partnership for better health outcomes.

1:50 pm - 3:00 pm
Private Sector Mobilization Building in-country and regional capacity: the Global Financing Facility (GFF)
A Discussion with GFF principals and private sector

3:15 pm - 4:30 pm
Cocktail Hour & Closing Remarks

 

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Panel 1: The Components of Global Health Security, MNCH, and Infectious Disease Agendas, is Integration Possible?
Transitioning from Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), panelists shared best practices they believe will enable governments, multilateral organizations, and the private sector to work in a more integrated manner to solve global health issues. The panel addressed challenges in meeting broad and ambitious goals such as Sustainable Development Goal # 3: “to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages”. Other issues discussed included the failure to meet MDGs # 4 and 5, which deal with maternal, newborn and child health, the need to empower leadership at the community and country levels, and the roles of the private sector and government in initiatives such as the global health security agenda (GHSA).

Speakers

  • Marleen Temmerman, Director of Department of Reproductive Health and Research, WHO
  • Nick Herbert, Member of United Kingdom Parliament

  • Frédéric Bontems, Director for Development and Global Public Goods, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France

Although maternal, newborn and child health has improved greatly over the past decade, MDGs # 4 and 5, which target infant and maternal mortality, are lagging behind. In response to this, governments have partnered with NGOs, civil society, and private sector in movements such as Every Woman, Every Child, to address major health challenges facing women and children. This movement has since grown to include Every Adolescent, Everywhere, in an effort to address growing needs in humanitarian settings [Temmerman]. The panel agreed that learning from these successful partnerships was critical to the success of SGDs, and welcomed WHO’s Dr. Marleen Temmerman’s announcement of the launch of a special supplement in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) focusing on a variety of topics including women, children and adolescent issues in humanitarian settings, financing of global initiatives, impact of social determinants and human rights. In addition to cross-sectoral partnerships, France believes the successful implementation of the SDGs will require creative approaches and innovation means to improve financing mechanism instruments, building a robust health workforce, and alleviating health security issues. There was consensus that health ministries should work closely with other ministries such as education, finance and diplomacy to maintain political attention on health. In addition to mobilizing through G7, France has joined the Global Health and Foreign Policy initiative along with Senegal, Norway, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa to bring public health issues at the top of the global political agenda [Bontems]. There was a concern that having broad goals that were not addressing specific issues could result in complacency. WHO’s plan to eliminate tuberculosis by 2035 for instance is not on track; UK Parliament’s Mr. Nick Herbert added that at the current rate, it would take approximate 2 centuries to eliminate TB. Some reasons for the lag in the fight against TB are shortage in finances, old fashioned tools, and inadequate health systems [Herbert]. Panelists agreed that health should be seen as an investment instead of an expenditure, especially because of its positive effects on nations’ economic growth. There is a push for European countries to adopt models that would use taxes on industries such as oil, to benefit population health [Bontems]. Panelists shared excitement over the increased engagement of the private sector in global health, but highlighted the need to invest in stronger leadership nationally as to empower governments to more effectively identify needs and coordinate collaborative responses [Temmerman].

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Keynote Address | By Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, Under-Secretary-General of the UN

During his keynote address at the Sustainable Health and Development event, UNAIDS Executive Director and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Michel Sidibé reflected on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) achievements around HIV/AIDS, and how lessons learned from this experience could shape the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He stressed the need to evolve our thinking around global health partnerships post-2015, especially in terms of encouraging public private partnerships (PPPs) that are result-focused, people-centric as far as deliverables and participation, and that leverage existing resources in low and middle-income countries.

He attributed the success of the MDG #6 (combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases) to global solidarity, the successful mobilization of resources, and the shift from disease focused approaches to a strategy that linked HIV/AIDS to other issues including maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH), tuberculosis, and human rights. In this effort to deal with health in general, governments engaged civil society groups and the private sector in ways that introduced new debates on shared responsibility, shared investments in research and development, and drug price negotiations. According to Mr. Sidibé, these dynamics have changed the paradigm of treating people through the use of science as a force of activism, and more African governments increasing their health budgets, establishing antidiscrimination programs, and mobilizing more resources to support women and adolescent girls. Additionally, there is a growing realization that health security is not possible without individual risk management, and that in order to address issues such as climate change and new energy, we must first deal with the health of the people.

Mr. Sidibé stated that setting ambitious goals inspires transformation, and stressed the importance of political will in successfully transitioning from disease-specific approaches to contemplating the overall health of a population. He encourages the community to view health as not a cost, but an investment in the population, and calls for a data revolution to facilitate decision making at the country level and strengthen the management of emerging epidemics.

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Panel 2 | Exploring South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable Health and Development
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Participants discussed how South-South and triangular partnerships could apply lessons learned over the years to disseminate and scale up lasting and impacting collaborations around various global health issues. Speakers identified specific barriers to creating partnerships between country governments, multilateral organizations, and the private sector to tackle ambitious global health and development goals. Panelists drew from their own experiences to identify key factors for success—such as political will, communication, and supporting infrastructure—and discussed the future of South-South and triangular partnerships in the post-2015 development context.

Speakers

  • Dr. Richard Frank, Chief Medical Officer, Siemens Healthcare
  • Akash Bhavsar, CEO, SkyQuest Management Consulting Group
  • Mariana Faria, Head of Office, UNASUR-ISAGS
  • Teresa Liu, Envoy of the Secretary-General on South-South Cooperation, on behalf of Yiping Zhou, Director of UNOSSC
  • UNAIDS representative

The vast majority of people living with HIV are living in the global South, and the burden of non-communicable disease is rising disproportionally among low-to-middle-income countries. No one organization or country is capable of addressing these issues, thus the need for greater harmonization of efforts between governments, private sector, academia, civil society and the general public. The SDGs’ focus on the welfare of the people and the planet highlights the importance of a more holistic approach to health, but requires UN agencies and the global health community to respond in concrete ways scale up viable collaborations and share best practices that are adaptable. Such a successful collaboration under the UN Office of South-South cooperation was the partnership of the Uganda government with Cipla, an Indian pharmaceutical company, and Quality Chemicals Limited (QCL), a Ugandan pharmaceutical company. This partnership widened Cipla’s reach and network, established a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Kampala, and produced low cost medication while increasing access to HIV/AIDS treatment [Liu]. Another success story is the the South-South Global Health Exchange (SS-GHX), a joint initiative of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation at the United Nations Development Programme, with WHO’s regional office of the Americans, and the Pan American health Organization (PAHO) to enhances cooperation, knowledge sharing and exchange among developing and developed countries on successful practices for health and development [Liu]. Panelist agreed that it was critical to have absolute numbers associated with the SDGs that would allow global health actors to set series of short term goals to build momentum toward larger concrete goals such as UN’s goal to avert 21 million AIDS-related deaths and 28 million new infections by 2030. Key issues to consider when innovating global health outreach infrastructure are affordability of commodity by asking questions and addressing trade restrictions that may impact pricing, achieving a common regulatory market system to facilitate the registration of commodities in multiple countries at once, and solving availability issues through tracking systems and transnational mechanisms that could immediately mitigate stock-outs [UNAIDS representative]. In addition to affordability, technologies and other commodities also need to be adapted to the local circumstances as some equipment perform differently depending on temperature or are negatively affected by vibrations from transportation. Siemens Healthcare’s success in combining mobile medical technology and telemedicine has enabled governments in countries like Peru to invest in high technology in cities, and ensure that surrounding regions and countryside inhabitants benefit from these investments through hub-and-spoke models [Frank]. An emphasis should be placed on listening to each partner country represented so that targeted interventions appropriate for each country are implemented, on respecting the differences of each of these countries as not all solutions are feasible or appropriate in each Southern country, and on building trust between countries, the private sector, and multilateral organizations so that effective partnerships can be formed for the promotion of health for all [Faria]. Panelists concluded that while it is important to target specific illnesses when implementing broad, ambitious goals, a holistic approach is needed in healthcare. Better healthcare begins with availability of basic resources such as clean water and better sanitation. Science, technology and innovations were seen as key drivers for bringing desired changes in meeting those goals. These drivers however can only accomplish so much when there are many more patients than doctors able to treat them in most low and middle income countries.