Category Archives: g20

How to Ensure we “Leave No One Behind” on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

g20, poverty

 

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Today marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This year’s theme, “Leave no one behind,” is especially important to me as an advocate for the world’s most vulnerable populations. As former director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and as a Special Envoy for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), I have called attention to those who are too often left behind: the 1.4 billion people who suffer from NTDs.

NTDs have devastating consequences for the world’s poorest people. They cause anemia and malnutrition, and can lead to blindness, school absenteeism, disfiguration and the loss of livelihoods. Ultimately, NTDs undercut a family’s earning potential, productivity and ability to escape poverty. If we as a global community wish to end poverty, we must control and eliminated NTDs.

In less than a month, the Group of 20 (G20) will gather in Brisbane, Australia to discuss ways to stimulate economic growth among the world’s vulnerable populations. During G20 Summit, world leaders are expected to discuss financial sector reforms, infrastructure and employment opportunities. However, in order to make the largest possible impact on the world’s poor, the G20 should address global health and NTDs.

The G20 should embrace the fight against NTDs and include them among the most cost effective interventions to eradicate poverty and advance its goal to create a “sustainable path for current and future generations.” NTDs undermine the G20’s collective efforts to build human capital, increase employment opportunities, reduce inequality and expand access to agricultural and nutrition initiatives. NTDs can be eliminated by 2020 and the benefits of achieving this feasible goal will be long lasting.

Evidence has shown that debilitating and blinding NTDs such as lymphatic filariasis (LF) and trachoma can significantly affect a person’s income. For example, LF can lead to a 15 percent annual loss in personal income, and trachoma can cause a total potential productivity loss of $5.3 billion annually.

By addressing NTDs, we can ensure more children remain in school, and more women remain employed and empowered. Women with LF in particular, are vulnerable to stigma, social isolation, lost jobs and diminished wages, further embedding them in poverty. And when children are infected with one or more NTD, their cognitive and learning abilities are reduced making them unable to reach their full potential.

On the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, I join the Global Network in urging the G20 to recognize NTDs as a key underlying constraint to poverty alleviation and economic growth. In addition, we are urging the G20 to support the inclusion of NTD control and elimination efforts in the final post-2015 development agenda.

In order to ensure that no one is left behind, world leaders must support global efforts to control and eliminate NTDs. Because NTDs already infect the world’s most marginalized populations, we must prioritize their health if we are to end poverty.

For more information on NTDs and the G20, read the Global Network’s report.

Will the Agenda of the November 2014 G20 Leaders Summit Help End NTDs?

g20, NTDs, policy, ,

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By Haley Brightman and Amber Cashwell

With the G20 Leaders Summit quickly approaching, the Global Network has released its G20 Call to Action. This policy brief outlines the exceptional opportunity for G20 leaders to take concrete action to address global health priorities, including NTDs, during this year’s discussions, to be held on November 15-16 in Brisbane, Australia. The Global Network’s G20 Call to Action examines how and why the G20 is well-equipped to tackle NTDs and advance its overarching goal to catalyze sustainable, inclusive growth.

Why should the G20 address global health?

While the Summit will focus on strengthening the global economy and building resilience, G20 leaders must also address the root causes that undermine these efforts. NTDs contribute to the suffering of more than 1.4 billion people, and are linked to reduced worker productivity and wage earning potential.

Trachoma, for example, which can lead to permanent blindness, has caused an estimated global productivity loss of US$5.3 billion. Recognizing the impact of this disease, Australia has added trachoma control and elimination to its development policy. As host of this year’s summit, Australia has a unique opportunity to galvanize support among the G20 for trachoma and other NTDs.

NTDs also contribute to social stigma and increase susceptibility to other diseases like HIV. Equally important, NTDs are associated with anemia, poor nutritional status and lower socioeconomic status.

How can investments in health and NTDs help build strong economies and support equitable growth?

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott, as President of the G20 this year, recognized that “…you can’t have strong communities without strong economies to sustain them…” In order to develop strong communities, Australia and other G20 leaders must invest in the health of people – the real drivers of growth – and free them from the burden of NTDs.

The Global Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GAELF) has already demonstrated that investing in NTD treatment leads to stronger economies. For example, GAELF has treated nearly 600 million people for lymphatic filariasis since 2000, resulting in an economic rate of return estimated at between US $20-30 for every dollar spent on treatment.

But why specifically the G20?

The G20 accounts for 90 percent of global gross domestic product and 94 percent of global official development assistance, putting it in a uniquely opportune position to leverage resources and support for the fight against NTDs. Specifically, the G20 could help maximize the use of public-private partnerships and encourage investments that will close the US$220 million funding gap for NTD treatment. Through public-private partnerships, such as the London Declaration on NTDs, pharmaceutical companies are currently donating nearly all the medicines necessary to treat the most common NTDs —  but more is needed to help these drugs reach the communities that need them. The G20 nations can help close the funding gap for NTD treatment.

Here are 5 ways that the G20 can help end NTDs and build healthy communities and strong economies:

  1. Recognize NTDs as a key underlying constraint to global economic growth.
  2. Highlight the importance of NTD control and elimination programs in the G20 Development Working Group agenda and broader G20 policy statements.
  3. Call on historic and emerging donors to prioritize the issue of NTD control and elimination in their foreign policy, development and poverty reduction agendas.
  4. Call on NTD endemic countries to prioritize NTDs in their national poverty and health plans.
  5. Support inclusion of NTD control and elimination efforts in the final post-2015 development agenda.

 

Stay tuned for more updates on End the Neglect on how Australia can improve health and development across the region in advance of this year’s G20 Leaders Summit and beyond.

Global Health: The Elephant in the G20’s Living Room

g20, policy, ,

 

As the world gears up for the next G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia, the Global Network is focusing in on the Summit’s agenda in a push to get global health included as a key policy issue. To do this, we submitted a concept note today to the C20, which outlines why global health matters to the G20.  The C20 is the Australian Civil Society Steering Committee, which will ensure that community-level views help shape the G20’s discussions and outcomes.

We are looking to the G20 – the world’s leading economies – to take concrete, tangible actions on global health and development this year. Considering the G20 makes up 90 percent of global GDP and gives the vast majority of global foreign aid, it is in an exceptional position to leverage its resources and convening power to make a real difference in the developing world.

Global health has not been a part of the G20’s agenda in the past, but the Global Network strongly believes that the G20 must address it in order to advance its goal of sustainable, inclusive growth. One easy example: NTDs keep children out of school and prevent parents from working, which decreases human capital, worker productivity and gross domestic product.

As host of the 2014 G20, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has pledged that the 2014 Summit “won’t be a talkfest.”   As a way to encourage dialogue and collaboration among partners, the Australian government followed Russia’s successful model and developed an online engagement platform – a space where global civil society organizations can exchange viewpoints and weigh in on various policy issues.

Over the next year, we will continue to push the G20 to take up the issue of global health and NTDs, and hope that others will join us.

We know that we can have a greater impact by collectively calling for the G20 to address global health as a unified group of civil society organizations, academic partners and individuals―in the online platform and beyond.

An easy way to support the cause is to nominate which polices YOU think the C20 should focus on for the 2014 G20 Summit. It’s easy!

  1. Just go to http://www.c20.org.au/nominate-policies/ and drag and drop the issues in the order you want them. Global health is not an option yet, but the post MDGs, inequality, food security, and financial inclusion are also relevant to the fight against NTDs.
  2. Additionally, you can make an even bigger impact by submitting a proposal to the C20 about why you think global health should be on the agenda of the 2014 G20 Summit. Just send a statement of 400 words or less to by December 21, and feel free to reference ours as a guide. Thanks for joining us!

2013 G20 Summit: Das Vi Danya to NTDs?

g20, leishmaniasis,

 

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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!