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Daily report - 26 June 2008

Source: TropIKA.net editorial team

The presence of the National Institutes of Health at the formal session of Ministers who gathered to review and adopt the Algiers Declaration on the final day today was the clearest sign yet that the Algiers meeting has the world’s attention. Algeria was represented at the highest level, indicating its full commitment to research for health. Additionally, support for the momentum gained during this meeting has come from many quarters including other regions (notably the Eastern Mediterranean region), donors and sectors other than health.

The keynote address by Dr Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health in the United States USA, was a most encouraging signal to the region when he openly declared the NIH’s support and its readiness to work with all of the countries represented at the meeting.

“The NIH welcomes the goals of this conference and wants to reinforce the belief that sustainable programmes in countries require built-in institutional capacity. We researchers are no longer able to be independent of each other, not only at the fundamental level of discovery, but also managing that knowledge in a culturally sensitive way. This is a great moment because for the first time, we are all aligned in the sense that health research has to be developed at local and regional levels where best knowledge is applied for best results. We’re looking forward to Bamako, and you have our support.”

The Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, declared that Africa was ready to speak with one voice at the Bamako world forum: research is required for new knowledge and tools for health systems which will lead to improvement of health. He said the increase in financial resources was not reflected in African countries, which had the lowest rate of researchers per million inhabitants – less than 500 researchers per million population. To remedy the situation, the Commission on health Research for Development recommended that African countries should allocate at least 2% of national resources to health, and at least 5% of external health projects to aid research. This was recently affirmed by the International Conference on Primary Health Care and Health Systems, held in Ouagadougou which called on countries to reinforce training and operational systems to support decision-making. The scarcity of financial resources has led to choices between research and health development, but the real choice is the change of paradigm of translating research into health policies.

Dr Sambo stressed that the data from the first-ever mapping survey of health research in Africa would be useless if they were not disseminated. To do this would require networks to help translate research findings into action. He expressed his wish for Ministers to adopt the Declaration whereby they reaffirm their commitment to research on health, and reiterated WHO’s support for plans of action. WHO would make a plea for increased resources for health research systems, health information and knowledge management.

Following the plenary session, Ministers came together for a large part of the day to review the draft Algiers Declaration, which was presented to the house at 18:00 and signed by countries present. (See Algiers Declaration).

Countries need to do some work before Bamako in terms of assessing the research which is currently underway in the Region which was revealed to many delegates here in Algiers for the first time. Making “inventories” of who is doing what is a useful exercise which should be continued by countries. This is also a good opportunity for Africa to present a unified front at Bamako, now that the baseline data has been launched. What is not disputed is that there is significant momentum and consensus to “bridge the knowledge gap for better health in Africa.” The Region should maintain this momentum and not let this paradigm shift backslide. Countries have an opportunity now like never before, and we all look forward to Bamako with excitement and hope for a new way of working to improve the health of African populations.

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