Saving Lives: Health Thematic Strategy

Saving lives is one of the five strategic goals of Australia’s aid program. This includes saving the lives of poor women and children through greater access to quality maternal and child health services (for example, skilled birth attendants and midwives), and supporting large scale disease prevention, vaccination and treatment.

Good health is a human right and a means to achieving other development goals. However, many countries remain off-track to meet the health Millennium Development Goals and the poorest and most vulnerable people continue to bear the greatest burden of ill-health.

Australia has six pillars for our investment in health:

Supporting partner countries to deliver more and better-quality health services for poor and vulnerable people
Closing the funding gap to provide essential health services for all
Empowering poor and vulnerable people to improve their health
Working with other sectors, such as education, water and sanitation, and rural development, to address the causes of poor health
Reducing the impact of global and regional health threats, particularly in Asia and the Pacific
Maximising the impact of Australia’s total health ODA investment in partner countries.

Australia will base its investments in health on what works, is effective and achieves results. Australia will provide a mix of support, focussing on funding national health systems, in addition to supporting multilateral health agencies and civil society organisations. Our focus will continue to be on Asia and the Pacific region and we will provide multilateral and regional support where we can be effective.

The health thematic strategy informs Australia’s program decisions in this sector:

Saving lives—Improving the health of the world's poor

AusAID's health budget

On current projections, the aid program will spend around $759 million on health-related programs in 2011-12. This will include funding to support our partner governments to deliver improved basic health services, as well as helping poor people access safe drinking water and basic sanitation, and improve hygiene practices.

Strengthening national health systems

Restoring the emergency ward at the Zainoel Abidin Hospital, Aceh, Indonesia, was a critical part of recovering from the tsunami disaster and re-establishing health services. Australia also helped train many midwives and restore and equip community health centres. Photo: M. Anshar.

A strong health system is needed to save lives and keep women and children healthy. Health services must be adequately financed so that there are enough clinics and hospitals, they have trained staff and are stocked with essential medicines and equipment. It is often the poorest people who struggle the most to access quality health services, because they can’t afford to pay or they have to travel long distances to reach health clinics. Australia’s support is focused on ensuring that medical care is available to every person - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Australia is helping partner governments strengthen fundamental elements of their national health systems - including support for budgeting and planning, training health workers, building and repairing infrastructure, and distributing essential drugs.

Australia is contributing to health sector programs in countries such as Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Indonesia, Pakistan, Cambodia and the Solomon Islands. These programs aim to improve the ability of health services to deal with any issue, irrespective of the disease.

Maternal and child health

Sibange Goret and her baby Weetera, three months old, in a makeshift shelter in the hills above Nusa Barooka village. Gizo, Solomon Islands. Photo: Rob Maccoll for AusAID.

There has been a 34 per cent reduction in the maternal mortality rate worldwide since 1990. Despite this progress, the number of deaths remains unacceptably high. Over 350,000 women and girls still die each year from largely preventable complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. An estimated 7.6 million children also die annually, including 3.1 million newborn babies.

Investing in the lives of mothers and their children saves money, increases productivity and promotes social stability. Australia is committed to saving the lives of women and children and plans to spend at least $1.6 billion improving the health of women and children over the next five years (2010-2015).

Australia’s strategy is to support women, adolescent girls and children throughout the cycle of pregnancy and birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Each stage requires different types of care to address different needs: from providing access to family planning, skilled health care during pregnancy and childbirth, to promoting exclusive breastfeeding and improving immunisation coverage during childhood.

Australian assistance is helping achieve impressive results, for example:

in East Timor the number of children dying before their fifth birthday has been reduced by two thirds from 169 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 55 deaths per 1000 live births in 2010
in Indonesia, Australia has helped train more than 5,000 health workers and volunteers and renovated 24 public birthing wards in one of Indonesia’s poorest provinces, East Nusa Tenggara
in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, Australian funding to train rural health workers to improve antenatal and postnatal checks and manage obstetric emergencies has led to a 33 per cent increase in supervised deliveries.

Family planning

More than 200 million women and girls who want to delay or avoid pregnancy lack access to modern contraception. Women die in the developing world because they have too many pregnancies at a young age and without adequate birth spacing or access to skilled care.

Australia recognises that access to family planning—ensuring girls are informed, can plan their families and can protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection—is one of the most cost effective approaches to reducing maternal and child mortality.

Family planning has proven benefits in terms of gender equality and can also reduce poverty and promote economic growth by improving family well-being, raising female productivity and lowering fertility. In addition, the ability of women to control their own fertility is fundamental in improving female school retention rates, the health and economic status of families and the productivity of communities.

Australia, the United States, United Kingdom and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have formed an innovative alliance to work together more effectively to help avert unintended pregnancies and reduce maternal and neonatal mortality across 10 countries. The Alliance’s first year’s progress report was released at the ‘Every Women, Every Child’ reception at the September 2011 United Nation’s General Assembly. The Alliance has made good progress in its first year, with strong commitment from Alliance members. Achievements include:

in Tanzania: USAID, DFID, and AusAID pooled resources and partnered with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to ensure a sustainable supply of contraceptives following disruptive stock-outs in 2010
in Indonesia: Alliance members worked with the Government of Indonesia to initiate a study in selected districts of barriers to accessing long-term and permanent contraceptive methods.

Australia supports the same range of family planning services for women in developing countries as those supported for women in Australia (subject to the national laws for partner countries). A set of guiding principles underpins Australia’s support.

HIV

HIV has emerged as one of the greatest global threats to development. More than 34 million people are now living with HIV worldwide, with 4.9 million of those in the Asia–Pacific region.

As can be seen in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the effects of HIV are devastating for individuals, families and communities, and are reversing decades of development gains. The pressures of illness and caring for sick family members can push households into poverty, and poverty in turn may increase people’s vulnerability to HIV by leading them to adopt high-risk behaviours (for example, women and girls may take up sex work to supplement household income).

Halting the spread of HIV in our region is critical to protecting livelihoods and improving people’s health and well-being. Addressing HIV needs political leadership to mobilise resources in a coordinated way across a range of sectors.

Australian assistance has contributed to successes including:

in Vietnam, through Australia’s support to the Clinton Foundation, the number of children receiving antiretroviral treatment has risen from 200 in 2006 to over 2,400 in 2010.
in Papua New Guinea, Australian support has meant that 7,555 people were able to access treatment for HIV in 2010, up from 6,751 people in 2009, compared to zero per cent in 2003.

Malaria

Bednets being set up in Cagayan province, Philippines

Bednets, distributed by the World Health Organization and supplied by the Global Fund, reduce the chance of people being infected with malaria. Cagayan province, Philippines. Photo: Rowena Harbridge, AusAID.

Malaria is a major health concern in our region. For example, Papua New Guinea has one of the highest incidences of malaria outside of Africa. Half the world’s population is at risk of malaria, with more than two billion people at risk in the Asia–Pacific region.

The burden of disease falls most heavily on young children and pregnant women. Malaria causes enormous human suffering, with particularly strong impacts on maternal and child health. The disease slows economic and social development, and severely strains weak and under-resourced health systems.

Australia supports national malaria programs in our region, including in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and other countries. We support effective interventions such as long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets, and we are working with other agencies and governments to strengthen health systems and improve service delivery to help prevent malaria—as well other diseases—and to treat those affected.

Australia is working with the governments of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu and other development partners to reduce the burden of malaria through the Pacific Malaria Initiative. The Pacific Malaria Initiative has had significant successes; between 2003 and 2010:

malaria cases in the Solomon Islands reduced from 199 per 1000 people to 76 per 1,000
cases in Vanuatu reduced by around 80 per cent from 74 per 1000 people to 17.2 per 1,000.

Together with other development partners, Australia is also helping to combat emerging malaria drug resistance in the Mekong region. The emergence of drug-resistant malaria threatens global gains in malaria control and elimination. Australia’s support includes a contribution to the Three Diseases Fund, to kick-start efforts to contain drug resistance in Burma.

Non-communicable diseases

A billboard promoting physical exercise in Nauru. Photo: Lorrie Graham.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and cardiovascular diseases caused an estimated 29 million deaths in developing countries in 2008, and will account for a growing proportion of total deaths in the future.

NCDs are a significant health issue in our region. Diabetes rates in some Pacific Island countries, for example, are two to four times higher than the international average.

Australia is supporting global efforts to scale up NCD prevention and control and has committed significant resources to addressing NCDs in our region. These investments support screening programs, diabetes clinics, prevention programs including healthy lifestyle campaigns, and assistance to introduce tobacco and alcohol legislation. Australia also supports action on NCDs through funding research and helping strengthen the health systems of partner countries.

Australia attended the UN High Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases in September 2011 in New York. At this meeting, Australia announced $4 million in funding to the World Health Organisation to support the implementation of the Action Plan for the Global Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases.

Avoidable blindness

The World Health Organization estimates globally there are 285 million people whose vision is impaired, of whom 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision. Over 100 million people in the Asia-Pacific are vision impaired. Up to 80 per cent of blindness is treatable or preventable and 90 per cent of people with blindness or vision impairment live in developing countries.

The Australian Government is investing $21.3 million over four years (2011-15) to help eliminate blindness in East Asia through the Avoidable Blindness Initiative. This will build on the Government’s 2008 Avoidable Blindness Initiative of $45 million over three years (2008-11).

The initiative aims to improve the quality of life for people with low vision and blindness through better diagnosis, prevention of avoidable blindness, treatment and rehabilitation. This initiative has resulted in over 30,000 eye health consultations in Cambodia, Vietnam, Samoa and East Timor, the establishment or refurbishment of thirteen eye care centres and training for over 4,000 health professionals across Asia and the Pacific.

The further $21.3 million commitment will be used to treat over 8,000 sufferers of avoidable blindness and to conduct routine screening for 100,000 people in East Asia.

In line with the recommendation of the 2010 Independent Progress Review of the Avoidable Blindness Initiative, avoidable blindness is now part of AusAID’s health program. This will improve whole-of-health approaches and result in better alignment of avoidable blindness within national health systems and processes.

Pandemics and Emerging Infectious Diseases

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) in animals and humans are significant threats with health, social and economic consequences.

Australia is working to combat the threat of pandemics and other EIDs, including through partnerships with the World Health Organization and the World Organisation for Animal Health. We are assisting partner countries in the Asia–Pacific region to protect their citizens against emerging disease threats, including by promoting international standards of animal and human health, and by strengthening community systems for prevention, detection and control.

More information

[External websites]

Last reviewed: 23 November, 2011