Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation camp Africa New Director

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation annoncé Cheikh Oumar Seydi as the new Africa Director. He along at a critical time for the Foundation's work in Africa.

Seydi, Senegalese national has, along the Gates Foundation from the World Bank Group's International Finance Corporation (IFC), Where He Was the regional director for sub-Saharan Africa, based in Nairobi.

 He served as également IFC's director for eastern and southern Africa and have icts global director of human resources covering IFC's worldwide offices. Originally He joined the IFC in 1997 as an investment officer.

In His role as Sub-Saharan regional director for IFC Seydi managed the corporation's investment and advisory operations covering the Region's 49 countries. In 2018, the Africa Region est devenu IFC's Largest annual investment program, reaching $ 6.2 trillion in long-term investments, Including more than $ 4 trillion leveraged from other institutions for the private sector.

Prior to the IFC, Seydi Was a manager at Ernst & Young in New York, Where he Advised corporate customers are restructuring, reorganization, corporate finance and business valuation.

 Aussi He spent five years with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Began His career working for a variety of private banks and a shopping auditing firm in Senegal and Belgium. Seydi holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. 

"Umar Brings extensive experience working across Africa, leading extensive high-performing teams through growth and partnerships across the public and private Both sector," Said Chris Elias, President, Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

. "He will play a central role in the foundation's work across the world's second Largest continent."

"I am looking forward to working with our partners and exploring new strategies That will help Increase the foundation's impact on the continent," added Seydi "This is a critical time in Africa's development and I am excited to join an organization That Is committed to Supporting African countries meeting in Their development goals. " 

The foundation recently grown HAS icts Africa presence, doubling ict Africa-based staff over the past two years. Ongoing It to Deepen ict work in Ethiopia and Nigeria and Strengthen icts sub-Saharan Africa across commitment Including building an ecosystem of partners - public Both and private - to help scale icts increasingly integrated work Towards Addressing healthcare challenges, Eradicating poverty and Facilitating Economic Growth . 

The Foundation's 2018 Report reiterates Goalkeepers; "We believe Africa is the World's Most major priority for the foreseeable future. What happens to the wide number of young people there will be the single biggest determinant of whether the world Makes progress Toward the Sustainable Development Goals-that is, whether life on this planet keeps getting better

Health workers who steal government drugs are responsible for some deaths- Minister Aceng

Health workers who steal government drugs are responsible for some deaths- Minister Aceng

By Hope Mafaranga

The minister of health Dr. Jane Aceng has said some of the deaths that happen in Uganda, have been contributed by health workers who steal government drugs from health facilities.


The minister made the remarks on Friday during the launch of a $10.3 million Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system at the National Medical Stores (NMS) headquarters, Entebbe in Wakiso district.

 The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the 5 year ERP system software that will be used by NMS to manage procurement, warehouse management and drug distribution.

The system will also help health facilities to manage daily businesses including accounting, procuring and ordering drugs from NMS and project management.

The disappointed minister said, it was so sad and painful to see people die as a result of drug shortage yet government procures them to save the lives of Ugandans only to be stolen at the health facilities.

“Government buys the drugs to treat Ugandans for free, but a lot has been getting lost at the health facilities by the custodians,” she said.

 Dr. Aceng said her ministry will do what it takes to prosecute health workers who steal drugs and hold them accountable. She said the ERP system is one of the measures they will get to know who has been robbing government drugs and causing unnecessary deaths of Ugandans.

 “When a health worker steals drugs that are meant to save someone’s live, it causes drug stock outs in health facilities.

The health worker directly sentences the patient to death. Now we have the system in place and we need to know who is stealing the medicines and we shall deal with them accordingly,” she said. She also advised the health workers to go back to their core code of ethics and standards of practice of saving people’s lives.

The US Ambassador to Uganda Deborah Malac reaffirmed the US government’s commitment to improving the supply chain system in Uganda. Malac said over the years, the U.S. government has provided significant support to Uganda to improve health for thousands of people.

She said last year, the U.S gave more than $500 million, making it the largest single donor to Uganda’s health system. She disclosed that the fund has assisted more than 10 million Ugandans get tested for HIV, contributed to the largest-ever distribution of insecticide treated bed nets in the world and more than 700,000 women have safe deliveries in health facilities.

The ambassador said the launch of the ERP was the latest milestone demonstrating the strong partnership between Uganda, US and other stakeholders to accelerate Uganda’s progress towards an effective and sustainable supply chain system.

 “An efficient and effective supply chain is a component for providing Ugandans access to quality health care in order to lead a healthy and productive life,” Malac said.
 Malac said her government was impressed with the way NMS has managed $27 million commodities that they provided over two years to fill the important gap in antiretroviral (ARVS) drugs.

She however noted that getting drugs to over one million Ugandans living with HIV/AIDS in many health facilities across the country is a formidable challenge that calls for better health systems.

“These drugs are a matter of life and death for the people who need them and no matter how different the logistics, we must succeed in delivering them,” she added.

Malac said the ERP system will provide a viable solution for improving the public sector’s over all transparency, accountability, forecasting and management of health supplies.

She asked the NMS staff and to manage the system well in order to benefit Ugandans and do its intended purpose.

“Managing this new system is not a matter of simply installing new software on some computers, it is an entirely new way of doing business which requires changing organisational processes and managing the change throughout the supply chain,” she said.

She commended the ministry of finance for its commitment in financing the health sector and the local government which she said plays a critical role in the supply chain cycle and puts the drugs and commodities into the patient’s hands.

She however asked the Ugandan government to increase its funding for health sector. The NMS general Manager Moses Kamabare said the system will eliminate the use of paper work and saving health facilities huge amount of money they have been spending in delivering hard copies of their drugs and other medical supplies orders.

 Kamabare said the ERP system will also help health actors including the health in-charges to monitors drugs right from the manufactures, to the NMS stores and delivery of drugs to their respective health centers.

 “ Because the health in-charges will be able to see the supply chain from the manufacturers, to our stores, to the time when the drugs are loaded to truck to their areas, it will wipe out the negative mentality that NMS were supplying empty boxes to health centers and drugs that the health centers did not ask for,” he said.

Dr. Diana Atwine the ministry of health permanent secretary said the system will silence politicians who always claim that government is doing nothing towards improving the health of Ugandans.

“Health is one of the of leading agendas politicians use to discredit government. The ERP system launch is timely as we near election campaigns, politicians will have nothing to say about the poor health service delivery as this system will help us to tract, monitor, account to the people and increase transparency,” she said.

The launch was attended by the NMS Chairman of the Board Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, the Kabarole district health officer Dr. Richard Mugahi, former Mbarara municipality MP Dr. Medard Bitekyerezo among others.

Getting to the heart of stigma

The early days of the HIV epidemic gave rise to two epidemics: one that was viral in nature and another composed of fear, loathing and blame. Three decades into the epidemic, it remains clear: HIV and AIDS doesn't discriminate; People do. Since AIDS first appeared, we’ve made considerable progress in reducing new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths. But our lack of progress in combatting the epidemic of stigma, discrimination and social exclusion undermines our efforts addressing the diagnosis of HIV, and treatment and care of people living with the virus. The persistence of stigma in the context of HIV also causes immense human hardship and diminishes us as a global community. Since the beginnings of the HIV epidemic, there has been a tendency to conflate stigma and discrimination. However, while the two are related, they are also distinct. Stigma is a social phenomenon that elevates certain groups over others and steadily devalues entire groups of people. Yet, looking back on the past three decades of the epidemic, hope remains: HIV also gave rise to resilience, spirit and determination. So how do we, the HIV community – people whose lives are touched by HIV professionally or personally, who are living with HIV, who are vulnerable to HIV or who know someone affected by HIV – move beyond rhetoric to action in getting to the heart of stigma?

Fuelling the Global Fund

Fuelling the Global Fund The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced the fundraising target for its next 3 year replenishment cycle “The single most important public health measure of 2019. The investment case was launched in Paris by French President Emmanuel Macron and calls for US$14 billion of donations largely from national governments in wealthy countries to cover the Global Fund’s sixth investment period of 2020–22. The $14 billion is just part of an estimated $83 billion that needs to be spent to fight the diseases over the 3 year period, most of which will come from domestic government budgets in affected countries. The full investment case will be presented at a meeting in New Delhi, India, on Feb 8, 2019, and France will host the Global Fund’s Sixth Replenishment Conference in Lyon on Oct 10, 2019. The Global Fund was established in 2002 to support affected countries in controlling HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and to bring the best science and management practices to bear on the diseases. Since 2002 there have certainly been major reductions in deaths and disease: the Results Report published on Sept 12, 2018, claims 27 million lives saved as the result of partnerships in which the Global Fund has invested since its launch -ie, a fall by one-third in the number of deaths. In 2017 alone, nearly $4 billion was invested in partner countries, with 17•5 million people on antiretroviral therapy to treat HIV/AIDS, 5 million people treated for tuberculosis, and 197 million mosquito nets distributed. Maintaining this progress is vital to end the three epidemics as public health threats and meet Sustainable Development Goal 3—health and wellbeing for all—by 2030. There are, however, challenges to be faced in staying on track towards the 2030 target. Although HIV/AIDS is gradually being brought under control via a treatment-as-prevention approach based on antiretroviral therapy, there is a risk of the response losing momentum, as discussed in our January, 2019. Deaths from malaria have stopped declining, there has been a recent year-on-year increase in cases, and control is complicated by emerging resistance to insecticides and to artemisinin-based treatments. For tuberculosis, incidence of new cases is falling at about 2% per year, well shy of the 4–5% needed to bring the epidemic under control by 2030, and drug-resistant disease (more than half a million new cases per year) is a growing threat. Political challenges must also be overcome for the next round of Global Fund replenishment to be a success. The USA has historically been the biggest donor, providing nearly a third of contributions. But at a time when the US administration seems more concerned with building barriers between people than uniting them, the future level of contribution remains uncertain. The Trump administration has requested $925 million for the Global Fund in 2019, down from $1•35 billion in 2018, but Congress usually provides more than the president requests, and the administration has said that pledges to the Global Fund are a “smart investment”. The UK has been the third largest donor (about 9%), but although the government commitment to keep international development funding at 0•7% of gross national income remains for now, while the country’s politics is preoccupied with the self-inflicted wounds of Brexit nothing can be guaranteed. Even the commitment of France, the second largest donor (12%), cannot be taken for granted at a time of national popular protests against the policies of Macron’s government. Perhaps it’s time for the governments of rapidly growing economies to take up some of the slack from traditional donors. Sachs and colleagues suggest that China, a former recipient of Global Fund support but now the world’s second largest economy, should become a donor. These authors also suggest that to achieve its targets the Global Fund should be asking for at least twice the $14 billion it has requested, and that this gap in funding should be filled by donations from the pockets of the world’s billionaires. Such broad philanthropy seems unlikely, except for a few enlightened individuals among the super-rich and their foundations. Nevertheless, at the very least the current level of support for the Global Fund needs to be maintained or we risk losing the gains that have been made, in which case the money will eventually have to be spent again. The Global Fund estimates that every dollar it spends brings $19 in health gains and economic returns—that seems a worthwhile investment in anyone’s terms.