Special Session of the Conference of African Ministers of Health meets in Geneva
15 MAY 2010 | GENEVA
15 May 2010| GENEVA - Member Countries of the African Union met during a Special Session of the Conference of African Ministers of Health in Geneva. The meeting which allowed participants to review progress towards health MDGs on the continent also gave them an opportunity to define recommendations to take forward to the African Union Summit of Heads of States which this year has as a theme "Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development".
The meeting was Presided by H.E. Commissioner Bience Gawanas and chaired by the Minister of Health of Malawi, H.E. Moses Chirambo. Commissioner Gawanas noted that the African Union recognizes the crucial role that health plays in development and encouraged meeting attendants to take action to save lives.
Recommendations coming out of the session included increased political commitment, increased health funding and better use of existing funds and better donor coordination and alignment with national priorities among others. The Ministers of Health were asked, especially in light of the multiple opportunities in the form of the G8 commitment , the UNSG Joint Action Plan and MDG Summit to define specific asks to focus the current engagement. Financing surfaced numerous times with the Minister of Sierra Leone stating that "economists say that health is not everything, we tell them without health there is nothing".
The Partnership thereafter met individually with Ministers from Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Mozambique to discuss the development of the Africa Investment Case, devised as a document that positions health as a space for high return investment. Ministers were asked to actively contribute to the development of the investment case. They were also encouraged to undertake national advocacy, especially towards Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Ambassadors to the African Union to ensure that the recommendations of the 2010 African Union Summit of Heads of States include increased and improved financing for health.