While I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mozambique I had the chance to interview three women from my community who were living with HIV, but receiving treatment thanks to PEPFAR (the United State’s multi-billion dollar initiative to combat HIV). I filmed these women as part of a larger video project about preventing HIV/AIDS in Mozambique.
You can see them and hear what they have to say here: http://www.overstream.net/view.php?oid=spr5lzmgn8l6
Last week in Seattle, the group known as the “Health 8″ — so named in reference to constituting the “G8″ of global health finance — met among a flurry of global health conferences and talks. Sandi Doughton from the Seattle Times reports on who the Health 8 are, and whether the rest of us should care: Seattle Times article on Health 8.
Read health journalist Christine Gorman’s take on the Health 8 at the Global Health Report Blog (follow the “Related Post” link for a more detailed description of the group and what it is supposed to do).
Does the Health 8 represent the potential of high-level coordination for crafting better wide-reaching strategies? Is it fair for some philanthropic organizations to get a seat at high-level tables while others don’t even know that the table is being set? Where is there room for the voices of the people who are supposed to be the ultimate beneficiaries of global health funding? Are evidence-based models being used? What level of transparency is appropriate in such discussions? Where do we draw the line between the institutionalized anarchy of uncoordinated NGO function on one hand, and secret meetings at which the fate of billions is quite literally decided on the other? These are some questions in the air.