The Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States

ACP Press Statement, 14 October – The Secretary-General, Sir John Kaputin, has told an international workshop on Poverty Eradication and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights that access to health services is fundamental to the health of individuals and communities in the African, Caribbean and Pacific states.

The ACP Secretariat is one of the key partners of the 32 million euros project funded under the 8th EDF-Intra ACP Development Cooperation envelope. The others are: European Commission, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPFF).

Commending this joint programme, which has made a remarkable contribution in improving sexual and reproductive health in the beneficiary ACP states, Sir John acknowledged that it is important to ensure that the investments attained by the programme are sustained and extended to where possible.

He also underlined the need to allocate sufficient funds for the health sector in national budgets, in order to ensure sustainability of such programmes that are initially supported by development partners.

Sir John encouraged governments to address the strategic need for all people to access affordable health services or health insurance and social protection programmes that, at a minimum, cover basic, preventive and primary medical care services as well as referral services.

“It is therefore important to ensure that there is a strong political will and major human and financial investment in development programmes to benefit the health sector of ACP states,” the Secretary-General, said.

He acknowledged that the development challenges that ACP states face are numerous and multi-sectoral, which require the participation of all relevant stakeholders and partners to chart out solutions, with the ultimate objective of improving the social and economic well-being of the people.

In this regard, Sir John stressed that the need to addressing the challenges in health development should be within the context of poverty eradication efforts and the promotion of sustainable development.

He re-iterated that it is also important that countries design health systems that are responsible to the needs of their populations, and aimed at improving access to services for the poor, in particular with respect to sexual and reproductive health.

According to Sir John, poor health has many dimensions which depend on a variety of indicators, for example, levels of income and consumption, vulnerability to risks and socio/political access.

He pointed out that a high prevalence of disease and poor health in a country harms economic performance while higher life expectancy, a health status, stimulates economic growth.

“To this end, efforts must be enhanced to break the vicious cycle and ill-health that is destroying lives on a vast scale in poor countries,” Sir John said.

He called on the donor community and development partners of the importance of building strong and sustainable health systems in ACP countries.

“It is only by doing so that our countries can make progress in attaining the targets of the relevant health MDGs and thereby contribute to the eradication of poverty in ACP States,” said the Secretary-General.

Ministers and senior officials from various ACP states are attending the workshop, which ends on Thursday.

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