Country Leadership is Essential for the Ownership of the Results a Health System Achieves
With Mr. Michael Malabag, the Honorable Minister of Health, Mr. Pascoe Kase, Secretary of Health and Mr. Ken Wai, Policy Director of Papua New Guinea in Geneva for the 68th World Health Assembly
At the last World Health Assembly, I was very pleased to meet dear colleagues from Papua New Guinea, where I worked for four years. Also, I was able to see the principle of Country Leadership in action when the Ministers and Secretaries of Health, as well as all Senior Professionals, participated in joint decision making about the status and future of world health. The principle of Country Leadership is the basis for effective country ownership, one of the five main principles of the Paris Declaration of 2005. The other principles are: harmonization of interventions, alignment with existing systems and structures, management by results and mutual accountability.
It has been 10 years since the Paris Declaration, and as the new report on the Millennium Development Goals shows, there is still much work that needs to be done about making global health and health sector development more effective. The old way of working independently is not acceptably any more. Ministers, Secretaries and all country leaders must lead the development, growth and expansion of the health sector. They are ultimately responsible for the health status of the nation and must ensure the effective coordination of all actors, donors and partners. We need country leaders, and better coordination strategies, that allow countries to lead and account for the improvement of their health system (and not simply be on the receiving side of uncoordinated help). Donors also deserve sustainable results and the maximum return on their investment. Because, in fact, not all help is really helpful and that what works is not always spread to all that need improved healthcare.
What I am talking about is a new way to practicing global health and ending preventable deaths. If you want to learn more about the new way of doing effective global health programs, I invite you to join the next free RGH webinar entitled “Aid Effectiveness in Global Health: Getting Back to Basics in Global Health”.
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