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ANNOUNCER: Our final speaker before our luncheon today – please welcome the former executive
director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership and the once and current minister of health
of the Republic of Senegal, Awa Marie Coll-Seck. (Applause.)
AWA MARIE COLL-SECK: Hi, everybody. AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Hi.
MS. COLL-SECK: Greetings from Senegal. I would like to ask first how many people are speaking
French here. (Pause.) I can speak in French? (Laughter.) OK.
Today and yesterday, I have heard a lot of things said on sustainable development. And
just to summarize, I think that particularly for us developing countries, we need to look
at leadership and governance – good governance. Stability is very important if you want to
sustain your development. But also peace – we need also to focus a lot on capacity-building.
The issue of partnership has been also highlighted with private sector, but also civil society.
And we have some discussion also on community empowerment and ownership. And I would like
today, just for a few minutes, give you again an example.
I know that somebody has spoken before me on Ethiopia, and it was almost what I wanted
to say. But let me give you some details on what happened in Senegal when we look at the
issue of community involvement, empowerment, but also ownership.
Just to look at this small structure – previously, people were always referring to health huts,
but as you can see, it is not anymore like an (sic) huts, but it is not also a big hospital.
But it is at village level. But often, it’s the people at community level who have done
this, and this is their first contribution. And this also something which we can take
as one of the element of sustainable development – having the communities themselves being
at the beginning of what they want. And what they want is health. And health communities
– health structures are like this and a lot of activities now are done around that
– but volunteers – but also a lot of people in the community.
This is just to give the example to show that you can have at community level in Senegal
women, men, young women, more old women – everybody part of the discussion to say and to know
what they want for their own community. And what is important is that you can have the
chief of the village or traditional healers or representative of woman groups – everything
can happen, but they are all part of the discussion. Health promotion also is done, sometime in
a place in the village, as you – a lot of you know, because you have been in the field.
And this is part of what we can just understand as ownership of what happen in a community.
Let me give you another – an example, concrete example, of what happened now at community
level in Senegal. You have a case management at community level and a lot of integration
with for example acute respiratory infections, malaria or diarrhea, with a lot of activities
there. The example of malaria – you have volunteers at community level able to do the
rapid diagnostic test there and give the treatment – appropriate treatment. Now, in Senegal,
we are not treating anymore malaria like this. We are treating malaria after having done
tests. And this is also something we can add on innovation at community level.
Another example is nutrition at community level with a lot of activities going from
just some advice to just learning how to cook things, but also looking at what is the – (inaudible)
– agriculture in the community – what is there at local level and how we can use
it for the community. Here is just a young child, as you see. He
is not in a comfortable position, but it’s really good because now we can do all this
at community level. This is only to show how to be able – at
community level, also – to teach to people how to have drinkable water. And this is very
key in a community where you don’t have access to – officially, to all this water
safe. You need to learn to people how to do, and this is an example of communities where
they can do that themselves and have drinkable water.
Family planning also is now decentralized at community level, and it is very important
to see here is not only the woman who is doing things – she is learning things to the husband
and now he is part of the solution, and not only waiting or saying no, no, no. Now he’s
part of that. (Inaudible) – also is another thing we are
doing at community level with antenatal preparation with tradition of birth attendants, which
are now taken. Before, they were a little bit taken out of the story, because they were
doing a lot of things which were not acceptable, but now with all the distribution and the
involvement of everybody at community level, they also are part of that and know when to
be there to protect the woman. And this is good also for the child’s survival, because
now the woman are more taking charge at community level and they understand things there.
The achievement in Senegal – the under-5 mortality – in 2005, we were at 121 deaths
per 1,000 live births; and in 2010 we are at 72. And we are trying to do more. (Applause.)
We are trying to do more. We are very confident to achieve the Millennium Development Goal
for the objective number four. We are not so proud for the five, because maternal health
still have problems, but we are all committed at all the level of the system and also at
community level to do better and more to ensure that we will be able to have also success
in other – for other objectives. But I wanted to highlight the fact that we
have been very supported by partners. And USAID has played a very important role. For
all the things I have been saying, they have been there with us, supporting communities
and helping us to have better results. We need now to ensure that we will be able to
go to scale, because we cannot also always wait for others to help us; we need to help
ourself and we need to put more money on health. This is one of my advocacy, with also the
head of state, who is very committed to health. But I say we need money for health to be able,
also, to sustain our gains. Thank you. (Applause.)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, we now invite you to make your way to the Georgetown Conference
Center for our lunch program with Senator Cardin. Staff will help guide you. That lunch
program will begin in approximately 20 minutes. (Music plays.)
MS. COLL-SECK: (Inaudible) – this for poster. You can have later. It will be sent to you.
It is a sort of summary of what I have said with more details. Thank you. (Applause.)