Panel Discussion (PD 09) – Strong Partnerships as a Determinant of Health: Bridging the Public, Private, and Political Powers to Accelerate the Attainment of the 2030 SDGs

World Health Summit | October 25, 2020, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM | Saal 2 – America

Background and statement of the need

One thing the sustainable development agenda has projected to the globe is the interdependency among the goals. On the road to reach 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it becomes clear that urgent commitments are needed to accelerate the attainment of health-related targets and SDG3 ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.

Addressing the current global health landscape means taking the opportunity of political momentum around COVID-19 and transform it into life-changing dignity for the most vulnerable but it also poses an opportunity to strengthen health systems. Strengthening primary health care is a fundamental step towards achieving universal health coverage for all and health-related SDGs. Ten years ahead of the globe’s most ambitious targets and in a year in which the UN System completes 75 years, we must, once it for all, acknowledge that with no health, with no leadership, there is no economic, social, and environmental well-being.

With the current health landscape, where infectious diseases account for near 4.3 million deaths (1.7 million female and 2.7 million male), a common agenda setting between the public and private sectors, that is leveraged by political powers and influences, is the determinant to achieve the 95-95-95 HIV/AIDS goals, reduce viral hepatitis infections to 900,000, reduce malaria case incidence by 90%, reduce the tuberculosis mortality rate by 90%, reduce the number of people requiring interventions against neglected tropical diseases by 90%, among others (UNITE, 2019).

Evidence shows that to progress globally in achieving these goals will demand a paradigm shift, with new ways of doing partnerships and securing commitments at local, national and global levels (Bekker at al., 2019). The SDG17 (Partnerships for the Goals) acknowledges that successful attainment of the sustainable development agenda requires effective partnerships to unlock the transformative power of trillions of dollars of private resources to deliver on sustainable development objectives (United Nations, 2015).

Considering this, UNITE – The Global Parliamentarians Network to End Infectious Diseases, steps forward to place the role of partnerships for the effective accomplishment of the 2030 SDGs at the global health agenda. It does so in partnership with the GHA – German Health Alliance, and with UNAIDS – the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS to promote a discussion and generate key recommendations on how to strengthen sustainable partnerships that are backed by the political will to attain the effective achievement of health-related SDGs.

With this triangle of institutions working in global health, targeting countries and stakeholders around the world, it is the right momentum to organize a high-level session at the World Health Summit 2020 that will bring the importance of integrated partnerships for development to the global health policy agenda. For UNITE, partnerships that include political power are crucial as parliamentarians are pivotal players in securing political leadership by changing budgets and laws, influencing policies and advocating for true change with their governments. For the GHA – a coalition of more than 100 actors from private sector and industry, NGOs, civil society and foundations, science and academia – innovation and partnerships are key drivers to jointly strengthen health systems, global health, medical technologies, solutions & services. And the UNAIDS’s role in connecting people living with HIV with other partners at the decision-making level is very clear and of utmost importance today and in the future.

Objectives

• To highlight the need for strong partnerships to enhance actions for accelerating the achievement of health-related SDGs
• To understand the need to break silos and work with different entities, public and private spheres for strengthening health systems and attaining sustainability at local and global levels
• To ensure that parliamentarians and relevant policymakers are keen forces in the creation and implementation of strong partnerships for eliminating infectious diseases, attaining quality health and wellbeing.

Outcomes

• To generate key messages on how to reinforce partnerships backed by political forces at the local and global levels to achieve the 2030 health-related goals.

Hosts

• German Health Alliance (GHA)
• UNAIDS
• UNITE

Chair

• Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite, UNITE | Founder & President | Portugal

Speakers

• Winnie Byanyima, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) | Executive Director
• Roland Göhde, GHA – German Health Alliance | Chairman of the Board | Germany