Helping Hands to Receive a Helping Hand
Public-Private Partnership Formed to Deliver Aid in a New Way
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Officials sign the Memorandum of Understanding for a new population, health, and environment alliance. From left: Tom Dillon, senior vice president, Field Programs, WWF; Sharon D'Agostino, vice president, Worldwide Corporate Contributions and Community Relations, Johnson & Johnson; Kent Hill, assistant administrator, Bureau of Global Health, USAID
Source: Megan Matthews/USAID |
An innovative new approach to deliver needed care and services to impoverished nations has been launched. On October 8, 2008, USAID, Johnson & Johnson, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) formed the first major global development alliance to focus on an integrated approach to tackling population, health, and environmental issues. The international effort will focus on remote areas of high biodiversity in Nepal, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The goal is not only to deliver needed health, family planning, and environmental management services, but also to develop an integrated development model that can be followed by additional donors to better serve wider audiences.
This three-year, $3 million global health initiative builds on the outcomes of earlier work funded by both USAID and Johnson & Johnson, which suggest higher efficiencies in aid delivery and improved results when health and environmental services are delivered in an integrated fashion. Building on these experiences, USAID and Johnson & Johnson will join forces to fund WWF to jointly deliver interventions that will reach remote communities living in and around protected natural areas and provide needed health, family planning, and environmental management services.
At the official launch of the initiative, officials from the alliance emphasized the potential positive impact of this public-private partnership to develop a new integrated development model that will result in long-term health and environmental improvements in its focus countries.
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Moderator Scott Radloff, director of the Office of Population and Reproductive Health, Bureau for Global Health, USAID, gives his opening remarks at the partnership's launch.
Source: Megan Matthews/USAID |
Kent Hill, USAID’s assistant administrator for the Bureau for Global Health, said that “Government cannot manage alone. Corporate America must help as well.” Tapping talent, expertise, leadership, and resources in both the public and private sectors is crucial to the success of international aid undertakings, he stated.
The impact of this project “can be significant,” said Sharon D’Agostino, Johnson & Johnson’s vice president for Worldwide Corporate Contributions and Community Relations. In earlier, integrated projects supported by Johnson & Johnson, the company found that “the more we did, the more we realized we could do,” she said. She added that partnerships like this one are considered a “best practice” to get things done. “We think the impact of this new alliance and approach will be immediate and greater than our previous efforts,” she concluded.
WWF’s Tom Dillon, senior vice president for Field Programs, grew up in the developing world and saw firsthand the negative impacts that damaged environments have on people’s health and well-being. He stated that integrating the efforts to improve health, environmental quality, and sustainability will enhance family and community well-being, especially in remote, underserved communities. The results will generate cost efficiencies, increase community involvement in and commitment to conservation efforts, and build national trust in communities’ ability to be self-sustaining.
The ultimate goal of this new approach is to improve health and well-being for the world’s people. Said Kent Hill, “Good health makes everything else possible.”
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