President Mahama lauds partnership for development
President John Mahama has stated that the post 2015 agenda provides an opportunity “for the introduction of new ways of delivering smart development by harnessing the lessons learnt from global public-private partnerships.”
“These partnerships have demonstrated the potential to raise funds from the private sector, through capital markets, innovative marketing, as well as via commercial relationships,” he added.
A statement issued by the Flagstaff Communications Bureau and copied the Ghana News Agency in Accra said President Mahama stated this in New York when Ghana hosted a side event at the on-going United Nations General Assembly, in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) and the Global Fund.
According to the statement the session on innovative development models was on the theme “21st century development: harnessing the power of global public-private partnerships in the post 2015 agenda.”
It was attended by implementing and GAVI partner countries, the donor community, officials from the UN, private sector partners, civil society, the Chief Executive Officer of the GAVI alliance and his team and the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
GAVI and the Global Fund, he said, have enabled new financing for global health at an unprecedented scale.
“Together they have raised well over $30 billion since their creation, representing a massive injection of resources for health.” President Mahama added.
On Ghana and its relationship with the two bodies, Mr. Mahama said the GAVI Alliance had driven down the price of major new vaccines by over a third in the last two years.
He said the Global Fund had also helped to reduce the price of anti-retroviral drugs by over 50 percent.
According to Mr. Mahama, the partnership was helping with the introduction of new lifesaving vaccines adding “In fact Ghana, was the first GAVI partner country to introduce two new vaccines at the same time.”
In April last year, he indicated that pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines were added to the national routine immunization programme, thus protecting children against the deadly diseases of pneumonia and diarrhoea.
“This year, he added Ghana will begin a demonstration project to vaccinate girls against human papillomavirus (HPV), the leading cause of cervical cancer, which is the biggest cancer killer of women on the African continent.”
Source: GNA