TASK FORCE ON INNOVATIVE INTERNATIONAL FINANCING FOR HEALTH SYSTEMS receives two Working Group Reports

The Task Force at Downing Street. Photo/WHO
The Task Force meets at Downing Street. Photo: WHO

13 MARCH 2009 | LONDON UK - More mothers and children will die of preventable diseases this year than in 2008 as the financial crisis derails improvements that poorer countries are making in their healthcare systems. This warning came in a report to the second meeting of the High Level Taskforce (HLTF) on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems, chaired by UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. This meeting follows the consultation with civil society which had taken place one week earlier on 5 March also held in London.

Set up in September 2008 in response to the call by world leaders at the UN High Level Event in New York for an additional US$30 billion to save 10 million mother and child lives, the (HLTF) brings together a small number of leading figures in the international community from both the North and the South selected on the basis of the perspectives they can each offer on innovative financing, health systems or political feasibility.

These include, among others, Prime Minister Gordon Brown (United Kingdom) (co-chair), Robert Zoellick (President of the World Bank) (co-chair), President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia), the Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg (Norway) Graça Machel (President and Founder, Foundation for Community Development, Mozambique), Director-General of WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, Minister of Health, Ethiopia, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Italy's Minister of Economy and Finance, Giulio Tremonti and United Nations Secretary General's Special Adviser for Innovative Financing for Development, Philippe Douste-Blazy. Its objective is to fill national financing gaps to reach the health MDGs through mobilizing additional resources; increasing the financial efficiency of health financing; and enhancing the effective use of funds.

Reports from each Working Group were presented to the HLTF London meeting: Working Group 1: Constraints and Costs and Working Group 2: Raising and Channelling Funds. They included the warning that more mothers and children will die of preventable diseases this year than in 2008 as the financial crisis derails improvements that poorer countries are making in their healthcare systems, stressing that even if poorer countries themselves and aid donors meet existing commitments, including all donors achieving 0.7% GNI for ODA and developing country governments investing 15% expenditure in healthcare, there will still be a funding gap of $7 billion a year. The Reports concluded that unless more resources are found, the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be met.