[AU-Monitor] 8 million Dying Annually- Health Rights Most Important to Africa-Human Rights Day Statement

[Rotimi]

*For your kind attention & circulation to contacts and networks

Press Statement ­ for World Human Right¹s Day ­ December 10
 
³Right to Health Most Important Right of All² says Africa Public Health
Rights Alliance

* Alliance Launches ³15% Now!² Campaign.
* Opens for signature ­ global petition calling on African governments to
immediately implement pledge to allocate 15% of annual national budgets to
healthcare in order to end annual and tragic loss of estimated 8 million
lives to preventable, treatable and manageable diseases, illnesses and
maladies. 
 
On the occasion of Human Rights Day 2006, the African Public Health Rights
Alliance launches the ³15% Now!² Campaign and opens for signature the global
petition calling on African leaders to without further delay implement their
2001 Abuja AU Summit pledge to commit 15% of annual national budgets to
health in order to end the tragic loss of an estimated 8 million lives
annually to preventable, treatable and manageable diseases, illnesses and
maladies. (Click here for full petition text)
<http://www.geocities.com/africa_15percentnowcampaign/petition.html> .
Speaking to the launch of the petition which will be presented to the AU at
its January 22-29 2007 Summit
 
The campaign¹s coordinator Rotimi Sankore stated:
 
³The horrendous figures that demand urgent action speak for themselves. An
estimated 1.1 million deaths annually from malaria, 2.1 million from
HIV/AIDS, almost 600,000 from TB, 4.8 million from child mortality, 300,000
from maternal mortality ­ and that¹s not counting malnutrition, water borne
diseases like typhoid and cholera, or cervical, breast, prostrate and other
cancers; heart, liver, kidney and lung disease.²
 
Underlining the looming tragedy that the shocking figures demonstrate,
Rotimi stated further:
 
³Unless they act without delay, the present generation of African leaders
may well end up presiding over the beginning of the extinction of modern day
Africa. The number of African lives lost annually to preventable, treatable
and manageable health issues alone is equal to losing annually, the entire
populations of Eritrea (4.4m people), Libya (5.8m people), Sierra Leone
(5.5m people), or Togo (6.1 people). The coffins and burial business must be
Africa¹s fastest growth industry. In the next 20 years Africa could lose
more people than the 100 million it lost in all the 400 years of slavery and
colonialism from which we are yet to fully recover. In 20 years an
equivalent number to the population of Nigeria (130million) ­ Africa¹s most
populous country could die²
 
Expressing concern that a campaign is apparently necessary to urge African
governments to fulfil their 15% pledge, Sisonke Msimang, Program Manager for
Open Society for Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Program stated:
 
³The evidence suggests African Heads of State are not taking the Abuja 15%
commitment as seriously as they should. 5 years after the pledge, the great
majority of the AU¹s 53 member governments including those in southern
Africa most hit by Africa¹s worsening Public Health crisis have not even
begun the process of meeting this pledge.²
 
She emphasised that ³it¹s almost as if African governments don¹t realise
that without a healthy and active population especially in the key age
groups and social groups most affected by the health crisis Africa has no
future. Maternal mortality for instance is almost 100% preventable. The fact
that the figures for Africa are the highest in the world suggest that our
governments still think that reproductive health which applies to half the
populations of our countries is a fringe service²
 
The Petition also identifies key healthcare challenges which the resources
from the 15% commitment should be focussed on resolving. One of them is
Africa¹s health worker shortages that have been exacerbated by ŒBrain
Drain¹, which subsidises healthcare systems of more developed countries.
 
Speaking on how brain drain has worsened Africa¹s public health crisis, Eric
A. Friedman, Senior Global Health Policy Advisor of Physicians for Human
Rights, a partner of the campaign, stated:
 
³In country after country, the shortage of health care workers, along with
the lack of support for health care workers who struggle heroically to save
lives, is a central obstacle to delivering a wide range of critical health
services.  Simply put, without the health workers, health services can¹t be
delivered, and horrific levels of death and disease will persist. Much of
the shortage is due to brain drain, as health workers migrate to countries
in the North.  Many of these countries train too few health workers
themselves, so rely on health professionals from abroad to help meet their
health care needs.  Wealthy nations¹ special connection to the health worker
crisis in Africa due to brain drain requires that they work on a variety of
fronts to prevent brain drain and support the development of effective and
equitable health systems in Africa.  Moreover, their own human rights
obligations demand an intensive and multi-faceted response to this crisis.²
 
Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi Director of Women Advocates Research and
Documentation Centre and Chair of the Nigerian and West African Social
Forums underlined the implication of African governments of meeting their
15% pledge:
 
³Unless the 15% commitment is fully implemented, all of Africa¹s 2010
Universal Access targets for prevention, treatment and care for HIV/AIDS, TB
and malaria will definitely not be met. Even worse the three 2015
health-related Millennium Development Goals - based on scaling up
reproductive health, children¹s health, and tackling the monster killer
diseases of HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and other diseases may be an
impossibility²
 
The petition, which will be presented to the African Union at its January
2007 Summit in Addis Ababa, also acknowledges that:
 
³We recognise that historical injustices and crimes against humanity such
as: the slave trade and colonialism; and more recently the debt burden; and
conditionalities imposed by the IMF and other IFI¹s capping expenditure,
resulting in ceilings on health and crucial sectors of the economy have
blighted development of African countries,²
 
Nevertheless it underlines to African leaders that:
 
³Fulfilling your 15% pledge without further delay will go a long way towards
demonstrating African governments political will, restoring African dignity
and ensuring that Africa¹s healthcare health care needs are met on a
sustainable basis, (not dependent on donor support) in order to meet what is
undoubtedly the most crucial Human Right of all, the Right to Health, and
ultimately to Life itself²
 
 
The first phase of the petition drive will be rounded-off with a rally at
the World Social Forum which holds in Nairobi, 20th-25th January 2006.
 
ENDS 
=====

For further information please contact the following:
 
Contacts- 
Rotimi Sankore /Centre for Research Education & Development of Rights in
África (CREDO África): +44 207 424 5744, media @ credonet.org
 
Sisonke Msimang/ Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA): Tel.
+27 11 403 3414, sisonkem @ osiafrica.org
 
Eric Friedman/Physicians for Human Rights: +1-202-728-5335 ext. 303
,efriedman @ phrusa.org
 
Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi/ Women Advocates & Research Documentation Centre
(WARDC): +234 8055951858 womenadvocate @ yahoo.com

          
The Alliance Partners are:
 Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS (AGHA), Uganda,
Africa Health Research Organization
Africa Internally Displaced Persons Voice (Africa IDP Voice)
African Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by
HIV and AIDS (ANERELA+).
Centre for Research, Education and Development of Rights in Africa
(CREDO-Africa)
Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre ­ CISLAC Nigeria
Cross-of Ministries International Uganda (CGMI)
Development Alternatives With Women for New Era (DAWN-Africa)
KIGEZI Healthcare Foundation, Uganda
Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
Oeuvre de Charité et Développement de LEMBA (OCDL ongd/asbl) - DRC
POSITIVE-Generation (Cameroon)
Positive Women¹s Network, South Africa
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
Santayalla Support Society (Togo)
Society for Women and AIDS in Africa - Southern Africa (SWAA Mozambique)
Southern Africa HIV & AIDS Dissemination Services (Safaids)
Stop TB and HIV/AIDS-The Gambia
Tbaction Kenya
Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)
Tuberculosis National League (Cameroon)
Women Advocates and Research Documentation Centre (WARDC)
 

Background
The ³15% Now!² campaign of the Africa Public Health Rights Alliance is an
initiative of the Centre for Research, Education and Development of Rights
in Africa (CREDO-Africa) in collaboration with its partners.
 
The campaign is based on the premise that ³we all have to be alive and well
to exercise any other rights in any meaningful way² and therefore that Right
to Health and to Healthcare is arguably the most crucial right of all as
articulated by both the constitution of the World Health Organisation and
Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights. 
. 
The "15% Now" Campaign has two major objectives amongst others through which
it seeks to advance the Right to Health in Africa, namely:
 
To engage African governments, African Intergovernmental organisations
(African Union, Regional Economic Communities: SADC, ECOWAS, EAC etc),
International Financial Institutions and donor countries towards ensuring
that African governments create sustainable conditions for resolving
Africa¹s public healthcare crisis by:
 
* Urgently reversing and ending Africa¹s health worker shortages
 
* Through fulfilling within a given time frame of 3 years, their 2001 Abuja
Declaration pledge to allocate 15% or more of annual national budgets to the
health sector. 
 
Both being key preconditions for achieving:
      i.     By 2015 all 3 health based Millennium Development Goal¹s of ­
·      Reducing Child Mortality (through successful implementation of
preventive vaccination strategies for polio, yellow fever, small pox,
typhoid, cholera, etc amongst others)
·      Improving Maternal Health (through implementing reproductive health &
other women specific health strategies)
·      And Combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
     ii.     Africa¹s and international Universal Access Targets for
HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB prevention, treatment and care by 2010
 
1. Africa Specific Objectives:
Resolve the Push Factors - Train and Retain Africa¹s Health Care Workers
 
Campaign towards ensuring:
1)    That the untenable loss of an estimated 8 million African lives every
year to preventable, treatable or manageable diseases, illnesses and
maladies led by HIV, TB and Malaria is brought to and sustained at the fore
of the African and global agenda. And that similar focus is brought to bear
on reducing maternal and child mortality through improved resource
allocation to reproductive health.
 
2)    That African governments (including the AU and REC¹s ­ EAC, ECOWAS,
SADC etc) make the resolution of Africa¹s health worker shortage and the
adoption of a comprehensive preventive health care strategy their top public
health care priorities and in consultation with health workers and other
civil society set measurable targets especially for rapid and scaled up
training [and retention] of all categories of health workers, (including
review and resolution of push factors that facilitate exodus of health
workers such as working conditions)
 
3)    That towards goal 2 [above], African governments immediately work
towards urgently implementing their 2001 Abuja Declaration pledge to
dedicate 15% or more of annual budgets to health care within 3 years (and
ensure that a commensurate percentage of this is dedicated to resolving the
human resource / health worker shortage).
 
4)    That the allocation and expenditure of this 15% or more of national
budgets to health sectors be monitored by health care professionals and
other civil society.
 
2. International Objectives:
Resolve the Pull Factors - End the Health Worker Brain Drain
 
[With Global Partners] Campaign towards ensuring:
1)    That western and international public pressure is placed on
International Finance Institutions, donor countries and the IMF in
particular to ensure those conditionalities such as expenditure ceilings and
other policies that hinder health sector training, employment and
development are immediately ended. In particular ensure that any such
policies that stands in the way of 15% or more of budgetary expenditure
being dedicated to healthcare is ended.
 
2)    That western governments that benefit from, promote and depend on
brain drain to prop up their health care systems immediately cease any
domestic policies that promotes such  (e.g. official overseas recruitment
policies) and consider options including increase domestic public
expenditure for education in general and health care worker training in
particular.
 
3)    That governments of countries that have benefited most from the
³brain drain² together with African governments, African and international
civil society including health sector workers examine ways to compensate
Africa¹s health care system for the damage their overseas recruitment
policies have done.
 
4)    That G8 countries be held to account at the Germany 2007, 2008
subsequent and related summits regarding their policies which undermine
pledges to enable African countries meet the MDG¹s - in particular the 3
health based MDG¹s.
 
5)    That the next 2008 International Aids Conference to be held in Mexico
places commensurate emphasis and focus on concrete solutions to scaling up
human resources and health care infrastructure, especially in Africa and
that African voices are provided with a platform.
 
6)     That key health intergovernmental organisations such as UNAIDS and
its sponsoring agencies focus on and take practical steps towards supporting
the resolution of Africa¹s human resource and infrastructure shortages
within the next 5 to 6 years.
 
 
 
 
 


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