Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-05-Speech-3-305"
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, on this World Health Day, I am happy to contemplate the European contribution towards the achievement of the Millennium Objectives. No fewer than three out of these eight objectives are about health care, about the fight against diseases such as AIDS and malaria, about reducing child mortality and the mortality of mothers during pregnancy or childbirth. The world, particularly Africa, is still lagging behind in a spectacular fashion. Every year, worldwide, more than one million children die of malaria, six million children under the age of five die of a lack of food or qualitatively imbalanced nutrition, and two to three million children die of diseases which could have been prevented by vaccination. In 2005, one woman died every minute of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
Time after time, the Commission and the Member Sates promise to grant high priority to health care in the developing countries. Despite all these fine promises, they fail to deliver and to incorporate them in the annual spending plan. Not even 5% of the EU’s budget for development cooperation is spent annually on basic health care, which is completely at odds with the promise and wish of this House to spend 20% of the EU’s aid budget on basic education and basic health care. Put your money where your mouth is.
Moreover, when we grant budgetary support, we must be much tougher with regard to the spending criteria. There should be no budgetary support for those countries that do not qualify on account of bad governance. Where budgetary support is given, it has to target specific sectors, in other words, explicitly home in on health care or education. It must also be clear beyond any doubt that the money is actually spent on health care, which causes it was spent on, and what the results are, whereby a specific percentage accounts for monitoring expenses by a civic watchdog group. We owe this to the European taxpayer and the people and parliaments of the receiving countries. Spending, should, in fact, not only be done via European programmes, but can often be done more effectively by joining forces with organisations such as the World Health Organisation, UNAIDS, UNFPA and via global initiatives such as Global Fund.
Europe should guarantee the funding of projects for sexual and reproductive health care which, on account of policy by the US President to block resources for these projects, are short of funds. This is in stark contrast to the 12 billion which the US is investing in an absurd campaign which promotes no sex before marriage and fidelity to the partner. The US Congress concluded today that this campaign causes confusion and hampers existing campaigns. Many women and girls have died as a result of this outrageous policy. We in Europe cannot, and indeed should not, put up with this. I hope that my fellow Members of the other parties in this House will not side with Bush, but rather with the millions of women and girls.
In addition to spending that should be increased, we should also approach health care in developing countries in a structural and integral manner. Access to a basic service such as health care is of the essence for the poorest of the poor, but this access is often inadequate due to a lack of expertise and infrastructure at source. That is why we should invest in logistics and social infrastructure, in the transfer of knowledge and training local staff, and also in basic education, with a view to imparting basic knowledge in the areas of hygiene, healthy drinking water and healthy food. Not until such time as a basic structure is in place can poverty-related illnesses and other unnecessary causes of mortality be eliminated in a truly structural manner.
In our resolution, we are right to focus on the shortage of health workers, often caused by brain drain, a phenomenon whereby highly trained doctors and nurses decide to work elsewhere in the world. We must prevent this brain drain by actively concluding agreements between sectors and countries, by promoting circular migration, whereby people return to their home countries following a short spell abroad, by training and transferring knowledge and by creating better working conditions.
Finally, in many countries, corruption and bad governance prevent a large share of the money that is spent on health care from ending up with the poorest of the poor. Studies have shown that in a country such as Chad, only 1% of government funds that are spent on health care actually arrive at their destination.
This brings me to my own report on corruption and development cooperation which will be discussed during tomorrow’s plenary. Good governance and the fight against corruption are of the essence if we want to achieve the Millennium Objectives. Both donor and receiving countries should make an all-out effort to bring this about in the next few years.
In this plenum, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of the Millennium Objectives, particularly in respect of health care and education. It is now really vital to double the budget that is spent on these. By doing this, you are doubling the chance of developing the poorest of the poor of this world, helping them escape poverty and become healthy. Make poverty history!"@en1
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