Global Health Recommendations for the Obama administration and Congress
Jan 22, 2009
Seattle, Wa. -- January 22, 2009 -- Health Alliance International, as part of a coalition of organizations committed to global health equity, helped to develop a set of recommendations for the new Obama administration and Congress.
Social inequities threaten the health and security of all parts of the world. Foreign aid is one tool to address these inequalities, and the U.S. could be better focusing its development efforts to ensure progress toward a healthier, more just and more peaceful world. As the report states:
“We believe that U.S. health and development assistance should address both the root causes of ill health—poverty and inequality—and be directed toward building public sector institutions to help governments respond to the needs of their people. Aid should be transparent on both donor and recipient sides and accountable to the target population—the poor who need services most. The new Administration and Congress have a unique opportunity to redefine foreign aid policy to help those most impoverished and to save lives. Implementing the recommendations of this paper would have an enormous impact.”
The recommendations include:
- Commit to a comprehensive approach to health
- Address inefficiency in aid
- Build local and national capacity to provide health care
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve women’s health
- Address HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
- Decrease extreme poverty and hunger
- Refine foreign aid policy and goals
- Ratify treaties that ensure human rights
In addition to HAI, the other organizations involved in developing these recommendations are Partners In Health, Physicians for Human Rights, ActionAid, Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, and RESULTS.
The full document, as well as a summary, is available for download.