All posts by Dano Gunderson

Help Us Protect U.S. Funding for NTDs – a Cause Worth the Investment

END7, U.S Government, ,

 

In January, we celebrated the largest increase in U.S. funding for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) since 2010.  Yet the party was cut short by the that President Obama’s FY15 budget request recommended cutting NTD funding by more than 13%, down to just $86.5 million. Considering the great strides the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) NTD Program has made in improving health around the world, cutting funding now would be a huge mistake.

Will you help protect U.S. funding for NTD programs? Send a letter now.

Investing in NTDs is a smart, cost-effective way to boost the health and economic prosperity of millions of people worldwide. Global health is a fraction of one percent of the federal $1.012 trillion budget – and the budget for NTDs is even smaller. But this tiny amount has a huge impact.

Capture_chart

InterAction, an alliance of nonprofits, emphasized this point in their annual Choose to Invest report – a publication which provides members of Congress with funding recommendations for U.S. foreign assistance programs based on experience from the field. Under the leadership of the Global Network and others in the NTD community, InterAction recommended that the U.S. program for NTDs be funded at $125 million in FY15.

Sahr Gando, a miner from Sierra Leone

Sahr Gando, a miner from Sierra Leone

An increase in funding for NTDs means effective programs, like this one in Sierra Leone, will continue to run. Last year, the USAID NTD Program, together with partners, assisted Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health in providing almost half a million people in the country, including Sahr Gando, with life-saving medicines. After receiving treatment, Sahr Gando was able to go back to work and support his family – a task which may have been impossible if treatment never arrived.

Together, we can ensure NTD programs like the one in Sierra Leone are protected – or even improved.

END7 recently launched a campaign to protect NTD funding. Click here to send a letter to Congresswomen Granger and Lowey—longtime advocates of NTDs and leaders of the House appropriations subcommittee that focuses on global health and foreign assistance funding―to thank them for their continued support for NTD programs and urge them to maintain or even increase funding for NTDs in FY15.

Thanks for taking a stand with us.

A Big Win for NTD Funding in the U.S. FY 2014 Budget

NTDs, policy, , , ,

 

Credit: Flickr user geetarchurchy

Credit: Flickr user geetarchurchy

After three years of indecisive budget wars, Congress has successfully passed a national budget for 2014. The one trillion-dollar-deal sailed through the House (359-67) and Senate (72-26) on January 15 and 16, and was quickly signed by President Obama the next day, raising hopes that compromise will replace gridlock in Washington in 2014.

What you may not know is that NTDs won big in the budget deal. Funding for USAID’s NTD Program was ramped up from $85.5 million ($89 million less 5 percent for sequestration) to $100 million, representing the greatest increase in U.S. NTD funding since FY 2010. Perhaps even more significant, funding for USAID’s NTD program increased despite a $4.3 billion cut to overall funding for U.S. foreign programs — demonstrating lawmakers’ on-going belief in the value and impact of NTD and global health programs. In fact, Chairman Hal Rogers of the House Appropriations Committee about the budget bill:

“In addition, the bill prioritizes global health, humanitarian, and democracy promotion programs—while reducing funding in other lower priority areas—to advance American interests around the globe and to fulfill the nation’s moral obligation to those in dire need.”

To date, USAID’s NTD Program has distributed more than 800 million treatments to nearly 250 million people across 25 countries, leveraging more than $6.7 billion worth of donated drugs, which represents one of the most successful public/private partnerships between government, non-profit and pharmaceutical partners. This new injection of funds will enable USAID to continue treatments in established program areas, monitor and evaluate national progress, reach new endemic populations and maximize drug donations that are currently available yet unable to be used.  Most importantly, this puts the global community one step closer towards reaching the London Declaration’s control and elimination goals.

So throw a party, grab some cake, and celebrate this great win for NTDs.

 

FY2014

Global Network Hosts NTD Development Agency Roundtable in Berlin

NTDs, policy,

 

Whether or not you regularly follow the Global Network’s End the Neglect blog, it is easy to imagine the difficulty in raising the awareness and resources necessary to put an end to the most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). With an already full agenda of competing priorities and a cloudy financial climate, policymakers often see NTDs as another bottomless global health issue. However, thanks to a simple, 50-cents-per-person solution, the World Health Organization’s goal to control and eliminate 10 NTDs by 2020 is very realistic, though far from effortless.

rtable_graphThe good news is that headway is being made to reach this goal, especially thanks to the partners of the London Declaration on NTDs, who have joined together to move an incredible amount of donated medicine to the communities that need them most. But, as the chart to the left demonstrates, much more needs to be done over the next seven years in order to reach the scale necessary to achieve our goal. Now more than ever, new partners are needed to share the burden, in order to ensure sustainability and avoid donor fatigue.

To find the answers to this challenge, the Global Network traveled to Berlin last week to hold our “Development Agency Roundtable” on October 23, 2013. This meeting of key global players was convened at the heels of the World Health Summit 2013, with the goal of raising the profile of NTDs and fostering honest discussions about the challenges commonly faced in advancing integrated, cross-cutting or stand-alone NTD programs. Besides proximity to the World Health Summit, Berlin was especially relevant to the Roundtable because of it historic role as the birthplace of the modern NTD movement nearly 10 years ago.

In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank, and with support from WHO, the Global Network was thrilled to bring together representatives from the U.S., UK, Japanese, German, Swiss, and Brazilian governments, as well as leading organizations and pharmaceutical companies such as the Inter-American Development Bank, German Foundation for World Population (DSW), University of Heidelberg, Global Health Strategies, Global Health Advocates France, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), Bayer, Merck Serono, Pfizer, and others to discuss NTDs.

The discussion, led by Neeraj Mistry, was lively and informative, and the outcomes were promising. Most significantly, there was broad consensus that NTDs are an important component of the poverty-reduction agenda and a critical aspect of solving the economic and social challenges faced by the bottom billion. Also, their inclusion in the post-2015 development agenda (as recommended in the final report of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Agenda) was strongly affirmed.

Beyond the basics, the Roundtable participants viewed presentations on how implementing partners have successfully integrated NTDs into their water and sanitation, maternal and child health, nutrition, and health system strengthening programs, which allows organizations to remain focused on existing priorities while simultaneously tackling NTDs. Because the negative impact of NTDs often hampers the full potential of other health and nutrition programs, program integration across sectors can increase overall effectiveness and efficiency.

roundtableAdditionally, the participants discussed the various options that exist for donors to give resources to NTDs, ranging from direct, bilateral contributions to multilateral “basket” funds and expanded public-private partnerships that leverage many small contributions to achieve a large impact. In the coming weeks, the Global Network will publish an outcome document that will synthesize the discussion into specific options for donors and policymakers to consider in giving to NTDs.

After months of careful planning, it was a huge reward to see so many governments and organizations join us at the Development Agency Roundtable and share their thoughts on NTD control and elimination. Discussion, however, is just the first step. We are hopeful that the outcome document will help us continue the conversation and provide donors with insightful direction as they seek to join the fight against NTDs or enhance their on-going support.

For more information about the Roundtable meeting, feel free contact Neeraj or GN Policy Director, Michelle Brooks.  Also, to view comments from WHO/AFRO about the event, please watch Dr. Luis Sambo’s statement .

2013 G20 Summit: Das Vi Danya to NTDs?

g20, leishmaniasis,

 

9677929867_2d903fe0da_z

The 2013 G20 Summit concluded in St. Petersburg last week amid debates on how to respond to the Syrian civil war and recent chemical attacks in the country. What world leaders did not discuss though was another crisis that is happening in Syria and around the developing world at large: an epidemic of cutaneous leishmaniasis and other NTDs.

Leishmaniasis (also known as Aleppo Evil) is an NTD that is spread by the bite of infected sandflies. At best, the disease produces disfiguring lesions on the face and body, which take more than a year to heal and often lead to shame, stigma and social isolation. Leishmaniasis has plagued Syria and other parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia for hundreds of years, but efforts to develop an effective vaccine for it, led by the Sabin Vaccine Institute, are relatively new.

Prior to the civil war, leishmaniasis posed a moderate public health threat to Syrians, but its transmission and pathology were tapered through surveillance and the availability of sanitation, insecticidal spraying, beds nets and anti-parasitic therapies. However, as Dr. Peter Hotez recounted in his testimony on NTDs before the House Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations last June, the conflict and subsequent break down of public health has lead to a resurgence of the disease. While reports cannot be verified, it is estimated that there are more than 100,000 new cases of leishmaniasis across the country and in the growing refugee camps outside Syria.

Beyond Syria and leishmaniasis specifically, NTDs are a slew of 17 diseases that directly impact 1.4 billion people around the world. They not only cause malnutrition, pain, deformity and blindness, but can also prevent people from working or going to school and exacerbate poverty and inequality. NTDs pose a significant threat to the goals of the G20 to promote food security, financial inclusion, and human resource development, as outlined in the St. Petersburg Development Outlook.

“In order to reach these goals, we must address issues that undercut the G20’s efforts to boost sustainable, inclusive growth,” said Amb. Michael Marine, CEO of the Sabin Vaccine Institute. “The G20’s efforts to improve nutrition and help build a skilled workforce will fall short if we do not the tackle other barriers that prevent people from working productively.”

The Global Network welcomes the G20’s emphasis on economic growth as central to boosting prosperity among the world’s poor and its support for the post-2015 development agenda, but human development must be emphasized as a driver of long-term economic growth and poverty reduction.

We hope the G20 will continue to strive to give people across the globe a chance to reach their full economic and social potential, especially by recognizing the impact of NTDs on economic growth and prosperity at the G20 Development Working Group meeting this October in DC. The Global Network will also be watching for NTDs at next year’s summit in Australia, and you can bet that we will be following up. , here we come!