Bernard Kouchner speaking at the third Taskforce meeting hld in Paris on 29th May
Taskforce calls on G8 to support their recommendations on innovative financing Following the success of a series of meetings and consultations in Doha, London, Johannesburg, Abuja and Paris over the past seven months the Taskforce has finalised its recommendations on innovative international financing for health systems, which it calls on the participants of the G8 summit to support.
The Taskforce and Working Group reports have been distributed, in advance of this week’s summit, to all participants of the G8. It is hoped that this meeting of world leaders will further strengthen the urgency for a combined effort to tackle the issue of providing an adequate health system for developing countries.
Strong political backing for each of the initiatives recommended is critically important. Successful implementation of these recommendations requires purposeful engagement with civil society, both in donor countries and recipient countries.
Bernard Kouchner, French Foreign Minister and host of the most recent Taskforce meeting in Paris, commented: "It is now vital that, rather than turning off the aid tap, we look for the means to increase flow."
At a time when a child dies every three seconds and a mother dies in pregnancy every minute – half a million from preventable causes – the need for radical solutions to the health funding challenge has never been so important.
Co-chaired by Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister and Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank the Taskforce's proposals aim to meet a US$10 billion funding gap through a number of means including the expansion of a mandatory solidarity levy on airline tickets, the increased use of the International Financing Facility for Immunisation and the strengthening in capacity of governments to ensure better performance and investment from private, faith-based community, NGO and other non-state actors in the health sector.
The website for the Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems
Re-launch of Taskforce website
The website for the Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems, www.internationalhealthpartnership.net/en/taskforce, has recently re-launched with a new range of applications designed to improve the navigation and accessibility of information hosted on the site. The Taskforce report and Working Group reports are currently available to download in five languages; English, French, German, Italian and Spanish with other languages, including Chinese mandarin, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese due to be added in the forthcoming weeks. The website encourages interactivity with video footage of recent consultation events and speeches from Gordon Brown, Dr Margaret Chan and Glenys Kinnock. A blog page and feedback form have also been added to ensure that a constant stream of communication can be maintained between the Taskforce, civil society and other interested parties.
