IFHA, Health Insurance Fund and PharmAccess all in the picture at Ontwikkelingssamenwerking.nu

'Today we started a new alliance’, said the Dutch Minister Bert Koenders of Development Cooperation in his closing speech on the conference Ontwikkelingssamenwerking.nu in The Hague. On Saturday September 26th hundreds of organizations, companies and individuals discussed the need for development cooperation -especially in these times of crisis- and initiated new alliances to raise the effectiveness of aid.

During the conference minister Koenders co-signed these ‘alliances for development, for international justice and for peace and security’. The so called Millennium Agreements are examples of modern development cooperation, in which private companies, universities, non-governmental organizations and governments join forces to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.   
Declaration of intent

One of the Millennium Agreements Koenders referred to is a declaration of intent between the Investment Fund for Health in Africa (IFHA) and the Algemene Pensioen Groep (APG provides services for pension funds in the Netherlands). Koenders underlined the importance of this declaration in his speech. By investing in the private equity fund of IFHA, APG strengthens the provision of private health care in Africa. It is a socially responsible investing that improves the health situation for people in Africa and has interesting financial returns for APG’s clients as well. IFHA is an important partner of the Health Insurance Fund and PharmAccess.

 
              Minister Koenders, Max Coppoolse (IFHA) and Adri van der Wurff (APG)
                                            sign the declaration of intention

'Moving Targets'
In his closing words Koenders also mentioned the alliance between his Ministry and TNT called ‘Moving Targets’, a program PharmAccess participates in. Moving Targets is building health clinics alongside important transport corridors in Africa to embed the spread of HIV/AIDS. Since one in three mobile workers in sub-Saharan Africa carries the virus, the transport sector really fuels the epidemic. To effectively tackle this enormous problem, Peter Bakker (CEO of TNT- a global postal and distribution company) founded the North Star Foundation (NSF), together with the World Food Program of the United Nations. PharmAccess will partner with the NSF and with Heineken in Congo to fight AIDS, and improve the health status of the mobile workers on an important corridor between Kinshasa and the port of Matadi.

Ontwikkelingssamenwerking.nu was not just about new alliances. It was a lively day, with over 1800 participants, full of shows, debates and clinics to review what has been achieved. Dutch celebrities, (inter)national politicians, policy experts and even the Dutch Royal Prince Willem Alexander and his wife Princess Maxima came to share their view.
 

                          Plenary debate with Minister Koenders on the right.
                                     First left to him Sjoerd van Keulen

Plenary debate
In an interesting plenary debate, Koenders stressed that the effectiveness of development programs has already improved in recent years: ‘The Health Insurance Fund is in my eyes an example of effective modern development cooperation. The pooling of resources between private and public partners resulted in improving the access to health care for communities through an innovative way: the introduction of health insurance.’  Sjoerd van Keulen, Chairman of IFHA and Board Member of the Health Insurance Fund participated in this discussion on modern aid.