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Australia's support to Indonesia is helping to save the lives of pregnant women and their babies by reducing maternal and infant mortality. Photo: AusAID Health, HIV/AIDS and pandemics
Investing in health helps lay the ground work for skilled and productive populations, and ensures that the poor can expand their range of choices, improve their productivity and participate more fully in society. Within Australia's immediate region there are a number of areas—such as women's and children's health, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, malaria and the quality of health education—in which progress is either often slow or negative and the need for action is compelling. Australia is strengthening national health systems and tackling major diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria and potential pandemics. Strengthening national health systemsAustralia helps countries develop better quality, cost effective and community focused health systems that are sustainable and that lead to better health outcomes in the long term. Australia's aid program focuses on simple, cost-effective methods of prevention and treatment. We concentrate on helping those people most in need, particularly women and children. There is a strong focus on primary health care and disease prevention and our aid gives emphasis to:
The aid program also provides support in areas that underpin good public health systems such as national health policy development and planning, disease surveillance systems, and pharmaceutical supply and regulation. The lack of functioning health systems constrains the delivery of improved services. Australia addresses this by supporting health sector reform and management at national and local levels. Support is provided to strengthen service delivery and increase access for the poor to affordable services, including community based health services. The aid program also helps rebuild health systems in post conflict situations, as in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Non-communicable diseases is also a focus of health sector interventions, particularly in the Pacific. The government recognises that increasing the number of skilled health workers, including midwives, is essential in improving health outcomes. In response to health workforce constraints, Australia is providing education and training support in a number of countries. For example, we have helped upgrade all nine of PNG’s nursing degree programs and in Indonesia worked with provincial partners to improve the clinical and non-clinical skills of midwives. Tackling major diseasesHIV/AIDSHIV has emerged as one of the greatest global threats to development. An estimated 33 million people are now living with HIV worldwide, with 5 million of those in the Asia–Pacific region. As can now be seen in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the effects of HIV are devastating for individuals, families and communities, and are reversing decades of development gains. The pressures of illness and caring for sick family members can push households into poverty, and poverty in turn increases people’s vulnerability to HIV by leading them to adopt high-risk behaviours (for example, women and girls may take up sex work to supplement household income). Halting the spread of HIV in our region is critical to protecting livelihoods and improving people’s health and well-being. Addressing HIV needs political leadership to mobilise resources in a coordinated way across a range of sectors. See HIV/AIDS: Australia's response for details on Australian activities to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. MalariaMalaria is a major health concern in the region. Outside of Africa, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea have among the world's highest incidence of malaria. Half the world’s population is at risk of malaria, with more than 2 billion at risk in the Asia–Pacific region. The burden of disease falls most heavily on young people. Malaria causes enormous human suffering, with particularly strong impacts on maternal and child health. The disease slows economic and social development, and places severe strain on weak and under-resourced health systems. Australia is continuing to tackle malaria in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and other countries with high malaria burden. We are using new technologies, a global donor campaign against malaria and working with other agencies and regional governments to strengthen health systems and improve service delivery. Australia has endorsed the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Action Plan and, more recently, the Regional Action Plan for Malaria Control and Elimination in the Western Pacific (2010–2015). PandemicsIf, or when, a pandemic of a new or re-emerging disease breaks out, the economic impact in the region may be devastating, and the demand for humanitarian and development assistance overwhelming. As a priority, Australia has committed $160 million for initiatives to combat the threat of pandemics and other emerging infectious diseases in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia has a strong partnership with the World Health Organization and other relevant international organisations, and will assist small developing countries to participate in regional responses to health threats. See also Pandemic influenza. Guiding principles on family planning and the aid programAustralia's overseas development assistance program supports the same range of family planning services for women in developing countries as are supported for women in Australia, subject to the national laws of the relevant nation. The government is increasing support for family planning activities to begin to reverse the decline in funding for family planning that has occurred over the last 10 years. The guiding principles on family planning provide information for all AusAID partners, including non-government and international partners, on the implementation of this approach. These guiding principles underpin the design and implementation of reproductive health and family planning activities in Australia's activities overseas. Family Planning and the Aid Program: Guiding principles Related websites
Last reviewed: 16 July, 2010
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