[e-drug] Can we document experiences with PEPFAR please? (6)

["Sharonann Lynch" <salynch@healthgap.org>]

E-DRUG: Can we document experiences with PEPFAR please? (6)
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Just to add on to Philippa's comments: USAID is currently prohibited 
from giving money directly into a national government's kitty, as UK 
has, to increase wages and recruit health care workers. This is one 
of many policies that should be changed if PEPFAR is to be accurate 
in defining itself as a flexible program that is "fighting AIDS 
differently" (as the head of the program, Randall Tobias, purports).

What the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator describes as 
innovative strategies in the PEPFAR Interim Report issued to U.S. 
Congress in August 2004 to address the shortage of health care 
workers are instead incredibly short-sighted and simplistic: U.S. 
volunteers and "twinning" with U.S.-based groups.

A true effort to engage and employ indigenous workers with local 
expertise is preferable. USAID country officials, questioned by the 
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the independent auditing 
arm of Congress, remarked that a system of U.S. medical workers 
volunteering for short stints in PEPFAR focus countries would be more 
trouble than its worth.

Aside from addressing the healthcare worker shortfall, EPN raises 
important points about local capacity not only being underutilized 
but literally harmed by PEPFAR's establishment of parallel processes, 
such the Supply Chain Management System (SCMS).

Sharonann Lynch
salynch@healthgap.org
Health GAP (Global Access Project)
Tel  +1 212 674-9598
Mob +1 646 645-5225
http://www.healthgap.org