Health in Africa

Here's a great idea, and none too soon. At the African Union Conferences of Ministers of Health recently, several interesting things happened.

One, leaders highlighted the need to become more self-reliant. Not that the industrialized world doesn't owe Africa, but past models of aid, which have traditionally come with numerous caveats, have been unsustainable for the continent. From IMF one-size-fits-all structural adjustment, to do-gooder NGOs with lots of good intentions but few long-term results, the dispersement of aid to Africa has been wrought with inefficiency and local corruption. The fact that prominent local leaders understand the need to move beyond this model and into a future of local capacity is promising.

A second hopeful sign from the conferences was a commitment by several nations to spend 15% of their budgets on health, a figure already reached by Botswana and The Gambia. The importance of this spending as an investment toward future viability in Africa goes without saying.

Finally, nations were less reluctant to single out pariahs and stragglers, namely Zimbabwe, whose political and economic nosedive was correctly pointed out at the conference as a health crisis. Economics, politics, health, education and stability are all interconnected, and I this is finally being verbalized.

It's time to move toward a new paradigm for the developing world. Local input has been ignored and underestimated for far too long. And as for Zimbabwe, other countries are realizing that if you're not lifting the rest up, then you must be dragging them down. And they're already starting to cut you loose.