Southern African Development Community (SADC) officials are meeting at the Durban International Convention Centre in KwaZulu-Natal to discuss a range of issues, including declining international donor funding.
The reduced funding is putting pressure on governments in Southern Africa to find more money to sustain essential health programmes, including those targeting HIV and TB.
This is among the key issues being discussed at a regional health meeting underway at the Durban ICC this week, bringing together officials from the 16 member states.
Health Department Director-General, Thembisile Xulu, says, “There is a lot of cooperation between SADC and Health Finance ministers who met in Harare in July, and there was agreement that really, we do need to work closer together, and not only to address the fact that we have had a pull-out in terms of development assistance, as we saw at the US and other funders pulling out. But making sure that we mobilise more domestic investment. But on top of that, we are starting to see the emergence of newer emergencies and priorities, like Ebola, like cholera, and other outbreaks. And how do we then prepare for that?”