Here is a news report on the 3MDG Fund. The [him] moderator thinks the word in the name of the Fund is Goal, not Goals. But he has seen both words used. Perhaps now is a good time to get it straight.
[him] moderator
Donors launch new $300m health fund
Three Millennium Development Goals Fund to target maternal, child health with significant role for ministry
Thomas Kean
Myanmar Times
Volume 32, No. 635
July 16 - 22, 2012
A NEW five-year multi-donor trust fund to tackle child and maternal health will work closely with the government to strengthen Myanmar’s health network, its backers say.
Donors have pledged US$300 million to the Three Millennium Development Goals Fund (3MDG), which will focus initially on 40 townships deemed most in need of external support.
The funding has been provided by the same donors that contributed $138 million to the Three Diseases Fund (3DF), including Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Launched in 2006, 3DF will end operations later this year.
Ms Veronique Lorenzo, the head of operations of the European Union delegation, will be the first chairperson of the fund. “We are delighted to announce the start of the 3MDG. Finally, we will extend our support to mother and child health, one of the most pressing priorities in Myanmar,” she said in a statement last month.
The 3DF was established to fill the funding gap after the Global Fund for HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis cancelled grants in late 2005. Its backers say the fund has proven that aid can be delivered effectively and transparently in Myanmar.
While this was done primarily through UN agencies and international and local NGOs, programs supported by the 3MDG fund will feature much closer cooperation with state health staff and institutions.
“We are happy to be working closely with the Ministry of Health and we will be helping them strengthen their systems and capacity to deliver quality basic health to the people of Myanmar,” Ms Lorenzo said.
Some resources will continue to be directed towards HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria after 3DF closes operations. This will supplement the Global Fund program in areas that it is unable to support, such as the fight against the spread of artemisinin-resistant malaria.
The shift in focus from HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis for the donor consortium was flagged in early 2010, when a scoping study was conducted to identify where new funding was most needed. By December 2010, at the fund’s annual review meeting, 3DF board officials said a decision had been made to target maternal and child health, citing the reintroduction of support from the Global Fund as a major factor.
Mr Paul Whittingham, head of office at the Department for International Development, the United Kingdom’s development body, said the 3MDG fund reflected the new priorities among the donors.
“We’ve long realised and recognised there are great unmet needs in child and maternal health that we’ve not been able to invest in significantly because it requires working through and with government health systems. That’s what this new 3MDG fund is going to do … [because] the political environment has changed and the operating environment has changed,” he said.
“We are now able to work in a different way, a more systems wise way, and that requires the government to be on board and investing in those systems.”
He said the scale of the challenge in maternal and child health was “huge” and improvements would require “changes in policy from government”, particularly in terms of the health budget.
“It is probably one of the biggest health challenges facing this country and typically the crisis in healthcare affects women and girls most starkly. The country is not on track to meet these Millennium Development Goals in maternal mortality and infant mortality. In some cases, in some parts of the country, the situation is especially dire and comparable to some of the worst places in the world.
“The combined investment by government and donors in healthcare was less than US$1 per capita and in part [that] reflects the government’s priorities and in part it reflects the neglect by donors. The difficulty, the challenge, to address maternal and child health [is that] you need a functioning health system and that is much more complex than distributing HIV, TB and malaria medicine.”
The fund’s activities will be split into three components, with the first focusing on maternal, newborn and child health; the second on support for HIV, TB and malaria in areas and populations not reached by the Global Fund; and the last on strengthening health systems.
The Ministry of Health will play a key role in planning and implementing this last component, said Mr Niels Guenther of UNOPS Myanmar, which has been selected to manage the distribution of funds.
Under the maternal and child health component, which will receive almost three-quarters of 3MDG funding, township health authorities will lead township assessments and the development of coordinated health plans. The fund will support the training of township health teams, basic health staff and community health workers, Mr Guenther said.
“The implementation of this component will significantly differ from the 3DF because it focuses on a selected number of townships that are most in need and on stronger joint coordination with and leadership by the respective health authorities.”
He said the fund would be launched in “a policy and operational environment that significantly differs from 3DF’s 2006 situation” but the results of an independent evaluation of the 3DF, to be released in September, would be used to inform programming.
Despite the increased cooperation with the government, non-government groups and community-based organisations will “continue to be important partners”, Mr Guenther said.
“They will be potential partners for service delivery as well as for strengthening community participation, representation, accountability. Greater participation of civil society will be a key factor for the success of the fund.”
http://www.mmtimes.com/2012/news/635/news63516.html
