The International Health Partnership - transcript introduction by Douglas Alexander

5 September 2007

We are halfway to 2015, the Millennium Development Goals midpoint. The international community made a series of promises in 2000. We must show our commitment to keeping them.

We have success in some regions and with some goals:

• 270 million people lifted out of extreme poverty since 1990.
• 86 million more children going to school

But we’re seriously off track. The picture is grim - half a million women still die every year in childbirth, 10 million children don’t live to see their fifth birthday. Of all of the MDGs, the health goals are most off track.

In poor countries one of the main barriers to people living longer, healthier lives is a lack of access to health workers, clinics and supplies of essential medicines.

Sometimes, despite our best effort, the support from donors and the international agencies does not match the health needs of poor countries who also find it costly and time consuming to deal with so many partners.

High level political commitment is what is needed to make a real difference.

The International Health Partnership brings together the eight international agencies working in health, a number of major donors and most importantly several partner countries.

The IHP intends to accelerate progress on health by doing three things: providing better coordination among donors; focusing on improving health systems as a whole; and by developing and supporting countries’ own health plans.

The IHP will mean that poor people benefit from improved health services.

The partners signing up to the IHP represent over 50% of total global health aid.

We hope that in the months to come other countries will join us to unite behind a common push towards health Millennium Development Goals.