Abstract
The Millennium Development Goals’ focus on just three infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria, and belatedly, tuberculosis) configured the global health funding landscape for 15 years. neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), a group of 17 or so diseases that disproportionately afflict the world’s ‘bottom billion’, are a symbol of global health inequities, in terms of prioritisation, research attention, and treatment. This article traces efforts to include NTDs in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda and, having achieved that goal, lobby for an influential position in the post-2015 aid agenda. The SDGs herald a shift to a more expansive approach and there is a risk that NTDs will once again be left behind, lost in a panoply of new goals and targets. There is, however, an opportunity for NTDs to lever their ‘neglect’ and be recast as a tool of accountability, acting as both a target for and proxy indicator of health equity for the SDGs.
Highlights
Accountability for Health Equity: Galvanising a Movement for Universal Health CoverageErica Nelson, Gerald Bloom and Alex Shankland
The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) herald a shift to a more expansive approach to development, but there is a risk that the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) could fail to gain traction in the new agenda, lost in a panoply of goals and targets
In World Health Organization (WHO)’s fourth Report on NTDs – Integrating Neglected Tropical Diseases into Global Health and Development – the case is made that ‘tackling NTDs significantly improves the prospects of attaining all of the SDGs, from reducing poverty and malnutrition to improving water and sanitation, gender equality and education’ (WHO 2017: 66)
Summary
Accountability for Health Equity: Galvanising a Movement for Universal Health CoverageErica Nelson, Gerald Bloom and Alex Shankland. We use the case of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) to reflect on the relationships between equity, accountability, and priority in global health.
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