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Panel 3: 15 Years of Collaborations: Champions and Partnerships
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Recognizing the Leaders and Programs which have Generated Change during the Millennium Development

Goals This celebratory lunch highlighted champions, as well as organization and partnership leaders, and provided a platform for them to share best practices and reflect upon the qualities that made the MDGs so successful, as well as lessons learned which should be heeded going forward. The implementation of the MDGs in 2000 greatly shaped the landscape of global health. Since their inception and implementation, the global health community has made great progress. Over the past fifteen years, new partnerships, such as GAVI, the Global Fund, and UNITAID were created to meet our collective goals, and the global health and development community saw the emergence of many great global health leaders.

Honored Guests

  • Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, Under-Secretary-General of the UN
  • The Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of International Development and Minister for La Francophonie, Mégantic-L’Érable (Quebec), Canada

Political will and engagement of the people affected is crucial to the success of any movement. Global solidarity is a primary driver for change, which only occurs through a people centric approach that engages the private sector, and integrates science and technology. MDG #6, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, was achieved 9 months before timeframe, and is the first UN goal to be achieved ahead of time [Sidibé]. Utilizing Canada’s Aid Effectiveness Agenda, donors coordinated with their country leadership, and this opportunity for large scale program under ministries of health and education was successful in concentrating efforts and enhancing capacity rather than diffusing it through competing projects [Paradis]. New approaches such as GAVI’s facilitated the scaling up of successful pilots and led to focused results. Partnerships such as the Global Fund showcased strengths of various partners; innovation and risk tolerance of private sector, track record and experience of bilateral donors, resources of multilateral development banks, and leadership and contextual knowledge of country partners [Paradis]. Lessons learned include the need for broader partnerships, an information culture of good data, regular reporting and transparency, and innovation in all aspects of global health architecture, from technology to communication of cost-effective tools.

Next Steps

It is important to think about the next five years as an opportunity to break the backbone of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and prevent its resurface. Global health security will never happen without individual health risk management [Sidibé]. In order to achieve a new paradigm in global health, every organization needs to engage the private sector, civil society, and government agencies. We must continue to reexamine and reinvent our approaches to work more strategically with actors from all sectors of society and develop and finance interventions that ensure healthier lives for all [Paradis].