HAVANA (Post-Online) - HEALTH has not been protected as a fundamental human right in many nations around the world, Global Forum for Health Research executive director Dr Stephen Matlin has observed.

And Dr Matlin has noted that Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Niger, Rwanda and Burkina Faso have met the 2001 African Union, Abuja commitment to allocate 15 per cent of their annual government budgets to the health sector.

Launching the Global Forum’s 2009 Report Card on financing research and development for health at Havana’s Palace of Conventions Hotel (PALCO) on Tuesday, Dr Matlin said the report revealed a mixed picture of performance globally in relation to financial flows in the domains contributing to research and development for health.

“Health is a fundamental human right but continuing large health
disparities between and within populations across the world
demonstrate the limited extent to which the protection of this human right has been given priority,” he said.

Dr Matlin said research had vital roles to play in supporting the
achievement of health equity including through identifying the nature, extent and root causes of ill-health, identifying and testing solutions and monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness and impact of interventions.

“Ignorance - the lack of knowledge, products and tools that research provides – is truly a fatal disease,” he said.

Dr Matlin said as new global challenges appear such as threats of
pandemics and impacts of climate change, it would always be the
poorest populations that would be most vulnerable and whose needs are the last to be considered.

“Research to promote, protect and restore their health cannot be
regarded as a luxury or left as an afterthought for these vulnerable populations,” he said. “It is literally a matter of life and death.”

Dr Matlin said many countries and regions had proposed targets aimed at increasing support for development and health in general and for research and health research in particular.

He said in some cases the targets had acquired the status of firm
commitments while in other cases they had remained aspirations.

Dr Matlin said for instance rich countries were yet to meet the UN
1970 target of contributing 0.7 per cent of their gross national
income (GNI) to development assistance to Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs).

He said that target was reinforced at the 2002 Monterrey Conference on financing for development and the 2005 G-8 Summit in Gleneagles.

Dr Matlin said Gleneagles summit had targeted Official Development Assistance (ODA) to from the G-8 and other donors to all LMICs to increase to about US $50 billion a year by 2010 compared to 2004 with US $25 billion a year going to Africa.

“Out of 26 HICs (high-income countries) only five countries have met the UN target set in 1970 for all HICs to allocate 0.7 per cent of GNI to ODA,” he said.
“The remaining 21 need to increase their combined ODA by US $268.61 billion compared to 2008 to reach the UN target.”

Dr Matlin said the US despite being the largest economy in the world contributed the smallest shares of its GNI (0.18 per cent in 2008) to ODA.

He said for the G-8 promise to Africa to be fulfilled, ODA to Africa would need to be at least US $54.5 billion in 2010 at 2004 prices and exchange rates.

On health targets, Dr Matlin said in Africa only Zambia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Niger and Rwanda had met the 15 per cent Abuja Declaration commitment as of 2006.

He said Burundi, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea Bissau and Nigeria were still spending less than five per cent of their government budgets on health.

Dr Matlin said in Latin America and the Caribbean, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua invested 15 per cent or more of government spending in health while Jamaica spent less than five per cent.

He said the period 2008-2009 had seen enormous challenges and unprecedented changes in the world.

“With limited resources to invest in health research, policy makers need to ensure that research provides both economic and social returns on investments,” said Dr Matlin.