News outlets report on the final outcome document of the Third International Financing for Development conference (FFD3), called the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

The Guardian: Glee, relief and regret: Addis Ababa outcome receives mixed reception
“World leaders at the Financing for Development summit in Addis Ababa have reached agreement on an economic framework to support the sustainable development agenda. As the third and final day of negotiations in the Ethiopian capital stretched into mid-evening, countries rich and poor voted in favor of an outcome document that, nine months in the making, will shape development finance for the next 15 years…” (Anyangwe, 7/16).

The Guardian: Addis Ababa outcome: milestone or millstone for the world’s poor?
“…The Addis Ababa Action Agenda lays out the different ways nations aim to pay for an ambitious plan to end poverty, ensure equality, and put an increasingly fragile world on the path to sustainable development. But just what kind of deal was struck is seemingly still up for debate…” (Chonghaile, 7/16).

U.N. News Centre: ADDIS: ‘historic’ agreement reached on financing for new U.N. sustainable development agenda
“…Financing is considered the linchpin for the success of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, which will be driven by the implementation of 17 goals. In support of implementation of these goals, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda contains more than 100 concrete measures, addressing all sources of finance, and covering cooperation on a range of issues including technology, science, innovation, trade, and capacity building…” (7/16).

Link to individual story

GlobalPost GroundTruth: After $3.4 billion pledge to Ebola response, concerns persist about preparedness for next outbreak
“Even as donors pledged an additional $3.4 billion last week to those countries hit hardest by Ebola — Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia — those working closely on recovery remain cautious about how the international community is internalizing the lessons learned from the epidemic as it strives to preempt future health crises. Humanitarian workers, advocates, and other experts in global health welcome the additional funding but fear that the focus on Ebola could take away from existing work on other diseases and that without stronger donor accountability, the funds might not have their intended impact…” (Calma, 7/15).

Link to individual story

Reuters: Two new trials of Ebola vaccines begin in Europe and Africa
“Two new Ebola vaccine trials began on Wednesday with volunteers in Britain, France, and Senegal getting ‘prime-boost’ immunizations developed by Bavarian Nordic, GlaxoSmithKline, and Johnson & Johnson…” (Kelland, 7/15).

Link to individual story

News outlets report on global malaria strategies by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM) and the WHO.

Inter Press Service: New Malaria Strategy Would Double Current Funding
“…Experts at the RBM say that just over 100 billion dollars is needed to eliminate malaria by 2030, with an additional 10 billion to fund research and development of new tools, including new drugs and insecticides. To achieve the first milestone of reducing malaria incidence and mortality rates by 40 percent, annual malaria investments will need to rise to 6.4 billion dollars by 2020…” (Stapp, 7/13).

Jakarta Post: Global malaria goals ambitious but achievable: WHO
“The World Health Organization’s global malaria program director Pedro Alonso said the new 2030 malaria goals and the 2020 and 2025 milestones, laid out in the WHO and Roll Back Malaria strategies, are ambitious but achievable. ‘We must accelerate progress toward malaria elimination to ensure that neither parasite resistance to drugs, mosquito resistance to insecticides, nor malaria resurgence unravels the tremendous gains to date. We can and must achieve even greater impact to protect the investment the global community has made,’ he said on Tuesday…” (7/14).

Link to individual story

Thomson Reuters Foundation: Exclusive: Which aid relief charities spend the most on fundraising?
“As the business of international aid booms, rival charities are locked in a race to attract donors with some spending close to a fifth of their resources on fundraising, a Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation has found. A survey of the world’s 50 biggest humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by expenditure found their total annual spending has more than doubled to $18 billion in the last 10 years — greater than the national GDP of one third of the world’s countries…” (Esslemont, 7/15).

Thomson Reuters Foundation: Exclusive: Aid charities reluctant to reveal full scale of fraud
“With fraud rife in conflict and disaster zones, aid charities are under pressure to be open about corruption but one third of the world’s 25 biggest aid charities declined to make their fraud data public in a Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation. Data collected from 12 of the 25 humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the greatest expenditure shows annual losses of $2.7 million — or just 0.03 percent of annual turnover based on data supplied for the years 2009-2014…” (Esslemont, 7/15).

Thomson Reuters Foundation: Exclusive: Is global aid reaching Syrians in need? Charities battle to deliver
“Charities trying to deliver aid across Syria to help victims of the worsening conflict, have admitted it is hard, if not impossible, to know where supplies end up and fear future funding could be at risk, a Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation found. A survey of 10 global non-government organizations (NGOs), United Nations agencies and local charities employed to deliver aid in Syria — all of whom requested anonymity — said they could not confirm aid is reaching the right people in many areas…” (Esslemont, 7/15).

Link to individual story

Nature News: Smart shots bring Nigeria to brink of polio eradication
“…Nigeria is on the brink of being free of the virus, thanks in large part to its embrace of innovative approaches to vaccination and public health. On 24 July, Nigeria will mark one year since it recorded a case of polio caused by the wild virus … If reached, this landmark will set the stage for polio’s official eradication in Africa — which can only be declared after the region has been free of the virus for three consecutive years — and leave Pakistan and Afghanistan as the only remaining hosts of wild poliovirus…” (Callaway, 7/15).

Link to individual story

Science: Visits to bat caves may up risk of spreading infectious diseases in West Africa
“…[A] new study suggests that [humans and bats] come in contact with one another frequently and for a variety of reasons. In three rural towns in Ghana between 2011 and 2012, researchers surveyed about 1,270 people to learn more about their interactions with bats. … About 45 percent of those surveyed reported eating bats, mainly sourced directly from the caves where bats roosted in drowsy clusters, the researchers report online [Wednesday] in Emerging Infectious Diseases…” (DeMarco, 7/15).

Link to individual story

Raleigh News & Observer: Gates Foundation gives $20 million to Duke for global health
“Duke University’s Global Health Institute got a big boost in its efforts to train students to fight health threats worldwide — a $20 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant includes $10 million for the institute’s endowment — funds invested for growth and ongoing support. Another $10 million is a challenge grant, to help attract and leverage other donations…” (Stancill, 7/15).

Link to individual story

The Hill: A moral commitment to end hunger
Faustine Wabwire, senior foreign assistance policy analyst at the Bread for the World Institute

“…[I]t will be impossible to end hunger and extreme poverty without addressing climate change. One step the United States and its partners can take [at the Third International Financing for Development conference] in Addis Ababa is to recognize the importance of strengthening local capacity for development. A country determining its own course is vital to reducing hunger and mitigating the effects of climate change. … The U.S. should enthusiastically support and elevate local capacity on the global development agenda. It should also ensure that building local capacity remains a core objective of U.S. development assistance. We are at an unprecedented moment in history. The international community can end hunger and extreme poverty by 2030. Let’s hope our leaders take on that commitment this week in Addis Ababa…” (7/15).

Link to individual story

Devex: Will new Ebola pledges face same old accountability problem?
Erin Hohlfelder, policy director for global health at the ONE Campaign

“…After more than six months spent building and updating our own Ebola resource tracker, we learned a clear lesson that we outlined in a new white paper last week: The tools we have today for tracking resources in a crisis are not fit-for-purpose. … In order for advocates to have data that will allow them to hold donors accountable for their promises, there must be a globally accepted, well-resourced tracking system that can collect and provide unambiguous information — ideally with the political teeth to ensure consistency and fairness across donors. At the same time, a system is only as good as donors’ willingness to supply it with good information. … Ultimately, if the existing mechanisms do not change to more consistently hold donors accountable for their pledges, there is a real risk that promises could continue to be unfulfilled without any real consequence. Until we can resolve this challenge, we are doomed to repeat our collective mistakes, and lose time, resources, and lives in the next crisis” (7/15).

Link to individual story

Huffington Post: Business Needs Sustainable Development Goals, Too
Arancha González, executive director of the International Trade Centre

“…Small and medium-sized enterprises will be central to achieving the inclusive economic growth promised by the post-2015 development agenda. … The development financing challenge has been described as the need to go from billions in traditional donor assistance to the trillions needed to end poverty and tackle climate change. This can’t happen without the private sector. … [At the Third International Financing for Development conference in] Addis Ababa this week, and [at the U.N. development and climate conferences] in New York and Paris later this year, governments and international agencies need to build bridges with business. And business needs to respond in kind: its bottom line will depend on it” (7/15).

Link to individual story

Huffington Post: In The Age Of Travel, Tuberculosis Knows No Borders
Sarabjit Chadha, project director at The Union South East Asia; Jamie Tonsing, director at The Union South East Asia; and Paula Fujiwara, scientific director at The Union France

“…The risk of [tuberculosis (TB)] transmission during air travel is expected to rise as the number of international passengers, currently 3.3 billion annually, is projected to double by 2034 according to the International Air Transport Association. … [W]e need more pragmatic approaches to reducing the TB risks posed by international travel. … We need intensive efforts to create awareness about drug-resistant TB among both the public and health care providers, so people are diagnosed early. We also need better communication between health care providers and patients, to help them reduce the risk of transmitting the infection. Most importantly, we need to do a better job of preventing drug resistance from emerging in the first place. … No individual country can face down drug-resistant TB on its own. Both wealthy and developing countries need to support each other in this effort, because TB knows no borders” (7/14).

Link to individual story

State Department’s “DipNote”: Sustainable Finance is Key to Health Equity
Ariel Pablos-Mendez, assistant administrator for global health and child and maternal survival coordinator at USAID, discusses the importance of implementing innovative and sustainable financing to promote health equity, including the launch of a new partnership and development financing mechanism called the Global Financing Facility (GFF), which aims to “leverage additional resources, private capital, and results-based financing to accelerate and sustain progress in maternal and child survival” (7/15).

Link to individual story

Center for Global Development’s “Global Development: Views from the Center”: The Rainmakers in Addis
Owen Barder, senior fellow and director of CGD Europe, highlights the “good and bad news” from the Third International Financing for Development conference (FFD3). “…The good news was put succinctly by an African Finance Minister: at last we are talking about the right things. This is a meeting about jobs, investment, and growth; not a meeting about aid,” he states, outlining several shortcomings of the discussions (7/14).

Link to individual story

IntraHealth International’s “Vital”: Availability: Keeping Contraceptives on the Shelves in Senegal
Bocar Mamadou Daff, director of the Reproductive Health and Child Survival Unit at the Senegalese Ministry of Health and Social Action, describes how Senegal’s testing and implementation of an Informed Push Model of contraceptive distribution is preventing clinics from running out of stock (7/15).

Link to individual story