[afro-nets] AllAfrica.com: Allocate 15 Percent of Budget to Health, African Govts Told (3)

["Robert Karanja" <RKaranja@kemri.org>]

Hi Peter,

You have raised a very important issue, development.  After much consideration I for one have come to be very sceptical of much of the funding that African nations receive. As you correctly point out, the expenditure on health does not have a multiplier effect and this doing is by design.  I will give two examples:

1. Global fund:  A local pharmaceutical company seeking to produce generic ARVs was able to acquire a voluntary license from a leading pharmaceutical.  Efforts to create multiplying effect were however thwarted by insistence from the government procurement to meet international production standards (WHO and ISO).  I have it from a good source that efforts to attain these standards were thwarted by lengthy costly delays coupled by an unclear, convoluted process that can be summed up as non-trade barrier.

2. PMI: Kenya is a pyrethrum producing country with the capacity to produce pyrethrum based insecticides.  Following the renewed focus on vector control, shoring up ITNs with IRS in endemic areas etc, which is being rolled out in Kenya with an increased focus on lambda-cyhalothrin, a fourth generation pyrethroid.  Any hopes for the translation of the malaria control efforts into a source of income for Kenyan farmers or industry were dashed by accompanying requirements that only US based/affiliated companies need tender for provision of insecticides, etc.

Malaria is a poverty related disease and any aid that is by design, detrimental to the continent's local innovation systems, is not only heavy handed but remarkably cents wise and dollar foolish!  Again, "... the poor people are not poor because they don't work or don't want to work ... the system is flawed and they work hard for no benefit."

Regards,

Karanja

--
Robert Karanja
mailto:RKaranja@kemri.org