Concluding the second day of the regional meeting, some participants felt the recommendations were advancing and promoted dialogue while others felt old ideas and rhetoric were being repeated that did not necessarily result in changes and improvement. The Executive Director of the Global Fund, Michel Kazatchkine, held a series of meetings with the different sectors in which he shared a Global Fund analysis as well as the CCMs that were very interesting from a conceptual and policy-making perspective.
“The Global Fund and its governing mechanisms (national and world-wide) put forward a concept of “Health Democracy”. A new paradigm in public health that has a plan to overcome traditional hygienist policies which are authority-based and with a slanted viewpoint” maintained Kazatchkine.
“The actual response to HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria require optimistic plans that promote collective responsibility and true participation by all sectors involved in the problem” he affirmed.
For political and cultural change to occur, which requires great thought into the types of governmental programmes and the national responses, it appears to necessitate different deadlines according to the urgency of these diseases.
Some of the great challenges that have existed from the minute Global Fund was founded still subsist as the years go by accompanied by a sense of frustration in both the governmental public sector as well as in civil society.
There have been strides made in terms of participation and appropriation in the countries, but there are serious bottlenecks at the time progress needs to take place for questions related to the importance of harmonisation, the need for performance supervision and communicating the advances and the results.
This has particular relevance at this time in which there are trends that question the effectiveness of international support, the exceptionability of these diseases and the need to concentrate efforts in order to quickly prevent them and treat them.
Much energy has been invested in topics related to “power”, institutional power or economic power, losing the focus on the need to more effectively coordinate the forces so that “powerful” change and improvement can occur.
Eight years ago, the international community came to the conclusion that more technical and financial resources were required in order to respond to AIDS, TB and Malaria. Comparatively speaking, the countries currently have better access to these resources which has brought to light that covering these needs was only a part of the solution.
There are still many critical areas to expose with the majority being found within the national scope. The urgency to save lives and mitigate the impact of the diseases persist. However, pressure is now added to this in order to demonstrate that we still need a great commitment from the international community to revert the impact of the epidemics. In this way, funding the efforts can continue so that health-related millennium goals can be met.
Without getting caught up in metaphors related with climatic change, it appears that we could be lost in a forest of how to find a solution to effective multisectoral participation in the Global Fund's Country Coordinating Mechanism, losing sight that perhaps we are dealing with only one tree in another large forest in which it is much more difficult to find our way out.
By Javier Hourcade Bellocq
Key Correspondent Team – Asuncion, 9/12/09
“The Global Fund and its governing mechanisms (national and world-wide) put forward a concept of “Health Democracy”. A new paradigm in public health that has a plan to overcome traditional hygienist policies which are authority-based and with a slanted viewpoint” maintained Kazatchkine.
“The actual response to HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria require optimistic plans that promote collective responsibility and true participation by all sectors involved in the problem” he affirmed.
For political and cultural change to occur, which requires great thought into the types of governmental programmes and the national responses, it appears to necessitate different deadlines according to the urgency of these diseases.
Some of the great challenges that have existed from the minute Global Fund was founded still subsist as the years go by accompanied by a sense of frustration in both the governmental public sector as well as in civil society.
There have been strides made in terms of participation and appropriation in the countries, but there are serious bottlenecks at the time progress needs to take place for questions related to the importance of harmonisation, the need for performance supervision and communicating the advances and the results.
This has particular relevance at this time in which there are trends that question the effectiveness of international support, the exceptionability of these diseases and the need to concentrate efforts in order to quickly prevent them and treat them.
Much energy has been invested in topics related to “power”, institutional power or economic power, losing the focus on the need to more effectively coordinate the forces so that “powerful” change and improvement can occur.
Eight years ago, the international community came to the conclusion that more technical and financial resources were required in order to respond to AIDS, TB and Malaria. Comparatively speaking, the countries currently have better access to these resources which has brought to light that covering these needs was only a part of the solution.
There are still many critical areas to expose with the majority being found within the national scope. The urgency to save lives and mitigate the impact of the diseases persist. However, pressure is now added to this in order to demonstrate that we still need a great commitment from the international community to revert the impact of the epidemics. In this way, funding the efforts can continue so that health-related millennium goals can be met.
Without getting caught up in metaphors related with climatic change, it appears that we could be lost in a forest of how to find a solution to effective multisectoral participation in the Global Fund's Country Coordinating Mechanism, losing sight that perhaps we are dealing with only one tree in another large forest in which it is much more difficult to find our way out.
By Javier Hourcade Bellocq
Key Correspondent Team – Asuncion, 9/12/09
