UK government axes flagship global health project | Global development
A flagship health project in Africa, which British ministers said would play a vital role in protecting the UK from future pandemic threats, is being abandoned due to aid cuts, the Guardian can reveal.
The Global Health Workforce Program (GHWP), which supported the development and training of health workers in six African countries, will end at the end of the month, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has announced.
“This is a truly historic decision, and the UK now risks losing ground on global health that we will struggle to regain,” said Ben Simms, chief executive of Global Health Partnerships, which led the programme.
Since its launch, the GHWP has been highlighted by ministers and officials as an effort to boost global pandemic preparedness by strengthening national health systems, and as a way of meeting the UK’s moral obligations to invest in countries where it recruits large numbers of staff for the NHS and social care.
Similar programs have been running since 2008. The current program involved projects in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi and Somaliland. His current three-year contract was due to end this month, but was up for renewal, as in previous iterations.
Renewing the funding in 2023, under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, the then health minister, Will Quince, said: “This funding aims to make a real difference to strengthening the performance of health systems in each of the participating countries, which will have a knock-on effect on global pandemic preparedness and reducing health inequalities. The pandemic has shown us that patients in the UK are not safe unless the world as a whole is resilient in the face of health threats.”
As part of a project, the Power for the People Africa Trust is funded through a program to train staff to combat gender-based violence and reduce teenage pregnancies and HIV infections in Homa Bay County, Kenya.
The trust’s Caren Okombo said the gains would reverse if funding stopped, adding: “New HIV infections in Homa Bay today: at some point these infections would cross borders.” [Britain’s] population as well. So stopping them at the starting point is something that should be important for a country like Britain.”
However, the Labor government announced last year that it would cut foreign aid funding from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP in order to increase military spending. This followed an earlier reduction of 0.7% during Boris Johnson’s tenure.
The GHWP cut was revealed in a written response to a parliamentary question asked by former Development Minister Sir Andrew Mitchell.
FCDO Minister Chris Elmore said the GHWP would close at the end of March.
He said: “The UK should be proud of the progress made in international development this century. But the world has changed, and so must we. With less money, we must make choices and focus on greater impact.”
Elmore said efforts were being made “to ensure the sustainability of projects beyond the life of the program” and that the government “remains committed to international development and will continue to help countries build resilient and sustainable health systems”.
A study by the Independent Commission on the Impact of Aid (ICAI) published this week found that the system for allocating official development assistance budgets in recent years was “not always based on shared strategic priorities or evidence of value for money”.
In a statement, Global Health Partnerships said: “We understand the budgetary pressures facing the government, but we are clear that reducing investment in health workforce development in low- and middle-income countries has real human consequences – and ultimately costs more in the long term. »
Partnerships cannot survive on goodwill alone, they added. “They require sustained investment and institutional commitment and once that thread is cut, it is very difficult to catch up. »
The FCDO has been contacted for comment.
