News

Webinar April 19: how do the Global Fund, GFF and Gavi coordinate their efforts to strengthen health systems?

During a joint interactive webinar on April 19th, Wemos and Cordaid – as part of the Dutch Global Health Alliance – will share our joint report’s main findings and recommendations on health systems strengthening coordination among the ‘3Gs’. The 3Gs are the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (Gavi) and the Global Financing Facility (GFF). They are the three largest global health initiatives that raise and allocate funds to strengthen health systems in low- and middle-income countries.

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New Wemos-led project AHEAD: Action for Health and Equity Addressing medical Deserts

Today – on World Health Day and during World Health Worker Week – the Wemos-led European project AHEAD, or ‘Action for Health and Equity Addressing medical Deserts’, officially kicks off. Within this 26 months-long project, Wemos and five civil society partners from Romania, Italy, Serbia, Moldova and the Netherlands will address health worker shortages in isolated or depopulated areas, known as ‘medical deserts’. The project is primarily funded by the European Commission, with co-funding from Open Society Foundations.

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Public-Private Partnerships in healthcare fail the poor: go public!

On March 24th, as part of the Civil Society Policy Forum ahead of the upcoming IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings (5-11 April 2021), Wemos co-organised the interactive session ‘Universal access to healthcare: lessons learned from Public-Private Partnerships’. Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng (UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health) was among the speakers who voiced their concerns about healthcare Public Private Partnerships to the World Bank. “As we think about a recovery after Covid-19, it’s very important to put the public first, the people first, the human first,” Dr Mofokeng said.

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Wemos welcomes three new Supervisory Board members

Wemos is pleased to welcome three new members to our Supervisory Board: Ingrid van de Stadt, Ruud van den Hurk and Thomas van den Akker. With their professional expertise, relevant networks and experience, they will actively contribute to our organisation’s course and further strengthen our position and (global) ambitions. The three new members will join our supervisory board as of April 2021.

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Let’s strengthen public financing and avoid the risky business of Public-Private Partnerships

Global actors such as the World Bank Group should focus on strengthening public health financing, and refrain from promoting Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) with commercial companies in healthcare because of associated risks, such as worsening existing inequalities. This is our request in our co-signed open letter (with nearly 100 signatories) to the World Bank Group, which we sent today and which will be discussed during our joint session with other organisations at the Civil Society Policy Forum of the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings 2021. Our request is based on an analysis of PPPs in healthcare which we describe in our new position paper ‘Risky business’.

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Election countdown: ‘building back better’ with a Global Health Strategy

Countries can effectively combat pandemics such as the current Covid-19 pandemic by making long-term investments in structural improvements in global health. This means that governments and their ministries must pursue policy coherence and reinforce each other’s programmes. As the 2021 Dutch general election is approaching, Wemos is advocating – with fellow members of the Dutch Global Health Alliance – a Global Health strategy. Experts, including Wemos director Mariëlle Bemelmans, explain what this would entail in the Election Special of the Dutch development cooperation magazine Vice Versa.

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Kampala Initiative webinar ‘Public-Private Partnerships and commercialisation in healthcare: donors, profit and people’

Country experience shows that Public-Private Partnerships in healthcare (involving commercial actors) bear high costs and can hinder rather than help progress towards universal access to healthcare, and fail to reach the most vulnerable. Yet, global actors are increasingly promoting such partnerships in low- and middle-income countries  – a cause of concern for civil society. On February 25th, Wemos and the Kampala Initiative co-hosted the webinar ‘Public-Private Partnerships and commercialisation in healthcare: donors, profit and people’ , during which speakers from civil society discussed their concerns.

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Election debate: the Netherlands and sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide

The Netherlands plays a leading role in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the global arena. With the Dutch elections ahead (in March), the question arises: will the Netherlands maintain this role? Will SRHR remain a priority of Dutch development cooperation policy? On March 4 (14:00), Dutch MPs will discuss this topic during the SRHR election debate organised by Share-Net Netherlands and the SRHR platform, of which Wemos is a member.

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The Medicines Debate in De Balie

How can we keep medicines accessible and affordable for everyone in the Netherlands and the rest of the world? Now that the Netherlands has made a remarkably slow start with its Covid-19 vaccination campaign, the topic of access to medicines is again high on the (political) agenda. So how can we improve this access to medicines? Several candidate MPs will discuss this during The Medicines Debate (‘Het Geneesmiddelendebat’ in Dutch) on February 25th, 20:00 at the venue De Balie, which will be broadcast online.

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