Donor money for health care in developing countries could be spent more effectively if it were channeled through a single global fund

Donor money for health care in developing countries could be spent more effectively if it were channeled through a single global fund, experts said Friday.A steady flow of funds is essential for health sector improvements, Gorik Ooms from Belgium’s Institute of Tropical Medicine said.

Research by Ooms and other experts published in The Lancet medical journal Friday said the amount and regularity of international aid was often unpredictable, making it hard for governments to plan ahead.Another study, by Harvard Medical School and the University of Washington, found that in some recipient countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, foreign health aid was partly replacing — not supplementing — domestic health budgets.

In such countries, for every $1 given in aid, governments move between 43 cents and $1.14 of their own health funds to other sectors, such as education or sanitation.”Governments compensate for exceptional international generosity to the health sector by reallocating government funding to other sectors,” Ooms wrote in The Lancet.He said governments also compensated for the unreliability of aid by spreading it over several years.One way to make health aid more stable would be to disburse it via a common pool, similar to the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria set up in 2002.

“If a young institution such as the Global Fund already stands out as delivering stable and predictable financing, it shows the potential advantage of pooling international aid,” Ooms wrote.In a news briefing, he said countries with high dependency on aid usually received pledges from donors for two to four years ahead.”When we in our own countries consider reforming health care, we make estimates for 20, 30, 40 years ahead: how much money will we have? what will happen with the population? what will be the health needs?,” he said.

Another issue is donors’ delivery on their promises.Madalo Nyambose, assistant director at the debt and aid division in Malawi’s Finance Ministry, said aid money was often disbursed later than promised, forcing recipient governments to borrow from financial markets and incur interest payments.

Ooms said a new global health fund could borrow ideas from the Global Fund, which pools donors’ money and allocates it in consultation with the countries in need and independent experts. Its board includes representatives of donors and recipient governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses and affected communities.The U.S. researchers examined data on 113 developing countries from 1995 to 2006.(Reuters)

Pakistan A pair of suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other Friday

LAHORE, Pakistan A pair of suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other Friday, killing at least 39 people in this eastern city and wounding nearly 100, police said. It was the fourth major attack in Pakistan this week, indicating Islamist militants are stepping up violence after a period of relative calm.About ten of those killed were soldiers, said Lahore police chief Parvaiz Rathore.

The bombers, who were on foot, struck RA Bazaar, a residential and commercial neighborhood where several security agencies have facilities. Security forces swarmed the area as thick black smoke rose into the sky and bystanders rushed the injured into ambulances. Video being shot with a mobile phone just after the first explosion showed a large burst of orange flame suddenly erupting in the street, according to GEO TV, which broadcast a short clip of the footage shot by Tabraiz Bukhari.”Oh my God! Oh my God! Who are these beasts? Oh my God!” Bukhari can be heard shouting after the blast in a mixture of English and Urdu.Senior police official Tariq Saleem Dogar said 39 people were killed, and another 95 were hurt. Some of the wounded were missing limbs, lying in pools of blood after the enormous explosions, eyewitness Afzal Awan said.

“I saw smoke rising everywhere,” Awan told reporters. “A lot of people were crying.”No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida.The militants are believed to have been behind scores of attacks in U.S.-allied Pakistan over the last several years, including a series of strikes that began in October and lasted around three months, killing some 600 people in apparent retaliation for an army offensive along the Afghan border.In more recent months, the attacks were smaller, fewer and confined to remote regions near Afghanistan.But on Monday, a suicide car bomber struck a building in Lahore where police interrogated high-value suspects – including militants – killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.Also this week, suspected militants attacked the offices of World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian aid group, in the northwest district of Mansehra, killing six Pakistani employees, while a bombing at a small, makeshift movie theater in the main northwest city of Peshawar killed four people.The attacks show that the loose network of insurgents angry with Islamabad for its alliance with the U.S. retain the ability to strike throughout Pakistan despite pressure from army offensives and American missile strikes against militant targets.

The violence also comes amid signs of a Pakistani crackdown on Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida operatives using its soil. Among the militants known to have been arrested is the Afghan Taliban’s No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.The Pakistani Taliban, meanwhile, are believed to have lost their top commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a U.S. missile strike in January. The group has denied Mehsud is dead but has failed to prove he’s still alive.

Militant attacks in Pakistan frequently target security forces, though civilian targets have not escaped.During the bloody wave of attacks that began in October – coinciding with the army’s ground offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal area – Lahore was hit several times.In mid-October, three groups of gunmen attacked three security facilities in the eastern city, a rampage that left 28 dead. Twin suicide bombings at a market there in December killed around 50 people.(AP)