Posts Tagged ‘G8’

Our aid policy must focus on link between poverty and disease

May 31st, 2011

With the G8 summit wrapping up last week in Deauville, France, the global health community is abuzz with the results of the meeting. Charles Ebikeme, who has written for End the Neglect on African Sleeping Sickness and Buruli Ulcer in the past, shared his thoughts on why the G8 countries should pay more attention to neglected tropical diseases in this recent article published in The Guardian.

“A pro-poor aid agenda aimed at tackling health provides stunning economic rates of return. For every $1 invested in control of Chagas disease in Brazil, $7 is returned. Lymphatic filariasis control in China produces a 15-fold return. Guinea worm eradication has been calculated to produce an economic rate of return of 29%. All of this without even mentioning the most important return – the life saved.”

Read the article in its entirety here.

Trachoma control community to G8 leaders: Honor commitment to eliminate NTDs

May 26th, 2011

Reposted with permission from International Trachoma Institute.

By: Elizabeth Kurylo

The trachoma control community wants G8 leaders to keep promises they made last year to help control or eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases.

With an advocacy ad in the official publication, G8 Summit France- 2011, the International Coalition for Trachoma Control (ICTC) is urging leaders of the G8 nations to fulfill their 2010 commitment to  “support the control or elimination of high-burden NTDs.”

The ad, available in English and French, also announces the coming availability of ICTC’s “2020 INSight” plan to finish the job of eliminating blinding trachoma by 2020.

The 2011 G8 summit will be held in Deauville, France, on May 26th and 27th.

The G8 is comprised of the eight main industrialized countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Reading List 6/29/2010

June 29th, 2010

Today’s reading list features articles all about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The topic of each article touches on at least one MDG. Article topics include G8′s commitment to maternal health, new approaches to development taken by the Obama administration, and reducing poverty. Take a look!

Promising Steps Toward International Women’s Health, Cecile Richards, The Huffington Post
A New Approach to Advancing Development, Office of the Press Secretary, The White House
G8 Nations Commit $5B For Maternal, Child Health, Medical News Today
UN chief urges G20 to ‘not balance budgets on the backs of the poorest’, UN News Center
G8 avoids bold aid promises amid budget strains, The Economic Times

2005 Gleneagles Communiqué – Revisited

May 25th, 2010

The 31st G8 Summit took place in 2005 at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. Addressing global health issues was high on the agenda, and commitments were made to build upon efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria basic health care, and of course neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). In fact, a pledge was made to “Support the control or elimination of neglected tropical diseases; and reach at least 75% of the people affected by certain NTDs in the highest-burden countries.” Despite these strides, four years later in Italy at the 35th G8 summit, new health commitments were not made.

Although G8 leaders reaffirmed their commitments to the pledges made in 2005, still more must be done in the upcoming decade. Activities that should be emphasized include investing in the control and elimination of NTDs, aggressively target issues in maternal and child health, and scaling up prevention methods and sustainable capacity building. To read more, and also to find out what you can do to get the ball rolling on these objectives, please visit www.one.org.