May 29 – Health is one of the priority areas of intervention for the Italian Cooperation Agency. Health is not only a universal right but it is also an essential condition for human and economic development. Precisely for these reasons, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented, during the second day of the 2013 Public Administration Forum, its cooperation projects in health and social services. “Over the past five years, we have carried out in developing countries a number of initiatives in social and health care, both in financial and interventional terms – explained Dr. Gennaro Gentile, an expert at the Directorate General for Development Cooperation – These projects represent good practices for us. In Tanzania we work against infectious diseases, while in Ethiopia we focus more on the health information system; in Tunisia our projects relate to the fight against women’s cancers in Tunisia while we focus on the fight against malaria in Burkina Faso.” The projects are carried out in collaboration with domestic structures; namely, the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome has, since 2006, engaged in an effective staff-training program of local health organizations in Tanzania. It has also offered technical assistance in technology, expertise and knowledge transfers as well as institutional dialogue with national and international health authorities. Finally, it carries out operational research to address new health policies. However, these projects are subject to a number of difficulties, as the Farnesina expert underlined, “the procedures are not always very agile and easy to follow. There may be some difficulties with local authorities to work in a certain way, or on the fact that sometimes there are insufficient funds. In these cases, we have to do all we can to carry out our projects, although in recent years it has been very difficult. I hope – concluded Dr. Gentile – that the economic situation will improve so that we can continue projects that have already been approved. We will proceed with our focus on social and health care, following our national guidelines, which, we hope, will become standard practice at the international level. For the time being, the Italian Cooperation Agency has developed some new practices for disability care that we are now seeking to have approved at the international level.”
