Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi will convene a high-level meeting with donors, development partners and ambassadors over how foreign aid is used in funding health programmes in South Africa. The Minister will be supported by his Deputy Dr Gwen Ramokgopa.
The meeting comes in the wake of a Service Deliver Agreement that the Minister signed in Pretoria last year. The agreement outlines a set of four health priorities on which the health department has to deliver. These priorities are: Increasing life expectancy, decreasing maternal and child mortality, combating HIV and AIDS and decreasing the burden of diseases and strengthening the country's health system.
At the meeting, the Health Minister is expected to introduce a partnership framework document which is aimed at regulating cooperation between the Department of Health and development partners. The document also addresses the delicate issue of aid alignment to ensure that such aid is linked with the country's health priorities. In the past donors have cherry-picked programmes to fund regardless of whether such programmes were aligned with the country's priorities.
Among the organisations attending the meeting will be the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNAIDS, Department for International Development (DFID), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and ambassadors of several countries including the United States of America (USA). A number of provincial health MECs are also expected at the meeting.
Members of the media are invited to attend the meeting scheduled to take place as follows:
Date: 21 January 2011
Time: 10h00
Venue: Premier Hotel (Church Street, Pretoria, opposite the Union Buildings).
For more information please contact:
Fidel Hadebe
Tel: 012 395 8493
Cell: 079 517 3333
