Transforming South-South technical support to fight noncommunicable diseases

Aaron D A Shakow; Gene Bukhman; Olumuyiwa Adebona; Jeremy Greene; Jean de Dieu Ngirabega; Agnès Binagwaho

doi:10.1016/j.gheart.2012.01.009

Transforming South-South technical support to fight noncommunicable diseases

Glob Heart. 2012 Mar;7(1):35-45. doi: 10.1016/j.gheart.2012.01.009. Epub 2012 Apr 13.

Authors

Aaron D A Shakow¹, Gene Bukhman², Olumuyiwa Adebona³, Jeremy Greene⁴, Jean de Dieu Ngirabega⁵, Agnès Binagwaho⁶

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; Program in Non-Communicable Disease, Partners in Health, Boston, MA, USA.
² Program in Non-Communicable Disease, Partners in Health, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
³ Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴ Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; Division of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁵ Ministry of Health, Government of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda.
⁶ Ministry of Health, Government of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda; Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

PMID: 25691166
DOI: 10.1016/j.gheart.2012.01.009

Abstract

At the UN High-Level Meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCD) in September 2011, each member state was challenged to create a multisectoral national policy and plan for the prevention and control of non-communicable disease by 2013. Few low-income countries, however, currently have such plans. Their governments are likely to turn for assistance in drafting and implementation to multilateral agencies and Contract Technical Support Organizations recommended by development partners. Yet because many NCD seen in the lowest-income countries differ significantly from those prevalent elsewhere, existing providers of external technical support may lack the necessary experience to support strategic planning for NCD interventions in these settings. This article reviews currently available mechanisms of technical support for health sector planning. It places them in the broader historical context of post- World War II international development assistance and the more recent campaigns for horizontal "South-South" cooperation and aid effectiveness. It proposes bilateral technical assistance by low income-countries themselves as the natural evolution of development assistance in health. Such programs, it argues, may be able to improve the quality of technical support to low-income countries for strategic planning in the NCD area while directing resources to the regions where they are most needed.

Publication types

Editorial