A need for better targeting
Authors of all the reports call for better and more precise targeting of funds to areas of greatest need.
The PMNCH analysis showed that donors tend to focus on countries with the largest numbers of maternal and child deaths, like India and Ethiopia, which also receive the most development aid. Other countries are largely ignored. For example, five countries – Azerbaijan, Congo, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe, and Turkmenistan – that are not expected to meet either of the MDG maternal and child goals, received fewer than three commitments each.
Likewise, while interventions that previously received little attention, such as family planning, pre-natal care and skilled birth attendants, are now getting more attention, there is still inadequate investment and policy attention to newborn survival – despite the fact that newborns account for 40 percent of the total burden of child mortality – as well as a surprising lack of attention to life-saving interventions related to child pneumonia and diarrhoea, which count among the leading causes of child deaths.
The importance of targeting funds and efforts to areas of greatest need is reinforced by a second study from the Countdown to 2015 group in the September 28th issue of The Lancet, which suggests that targeting health and nutrition resources to the neediest and most vulnerable may be both more effective and efficient than mainstreaming these programs. “There are concerns that the current focus on overall progress in coverage and health status may contribute to increasing health inequalities,” says Cesar Victora of the University of Pelotas in Brazil, lead author of the study. “Our study confirms the importance of taking equity into account.”
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