Solution or disillusion? Philanthropists and Africa’s health crisis - Africa Today Seminar (Third in a series of four on health issues in Africa)

Dr Nina Tellegen, Director of Wemos, an Amsterdam-based organization for international health issues, and Samuel Ochieng, Chief Executive of Consumer Information Network, Kenya

During the last decades of the twentieth century people’s health in developing countries became increasingly influenced by policies of international institutions, international treaties and agreements. The main global players in this respect are the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization (WHO). A relatively new international phenomenon is the so-called Global Public-Private Initiative or Partnership. In these partnerships the WHO, philanthropists such as Bill Gates, and governments collaborate to fight certain diseases, for example, the ‘Global Polio Eradication Initiative’, ‘Roll Back Malaria’, ‘Stop TB’ and the ‘Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization’.

This seminar focuses on the consequences of these initiatives on the health of the people they are meant to serve. First, Nina Tellegen will provide an introduction to the emergence of these international partnerships and then Samuel Ochieng will give more insight into the results of the Lymphatic Fylariasis (Elephantitis) initiative, which is presently being implemented in certain parts of Kenya. His talk will be based on a study that is being carried out during the first few months of 2004 among patients and health-care workers involved in the project.