Seeing is believing through a new picture of health.

I have been quite fortunate that on the last minute a friend of mine forwarded an invitation to a film screening " A New Picture of Health" held at the National Geographic down town DC.

The program went well, it was host by UN Foundation with several key speakers; including Ms. Joy Phumaphi, the executive secretary of African Leaders for Malaria Alliance, Mr Timothy Wirth, the president of UNF, Ms Natasha Bilimoria, the president of the Global Fight.

Perhaps what is so appealing about the event to me is that this kind of documentary will be a new way of reporting in near future. Reporting is sometimes not only about graphs and charts and number but also about seeing what is actually happening in the field, not necessarily from the eyes of the program implementer but also from the eyes of the beneficiaries. Especially to answer the question (1) Does the program relevant with their needs, (2) Does the program help them to change their situation thus contributed to achieve whatever they decided to achieve and (3) most important is does it enable them to help themselves at the end of the chain?

I came up to the screening with those 3 questions in my mind. More precisely what has been the impact of the work of the Global Funds to the live of the people that are affected by malaria, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis ( three top diseases that also inclusive to the MDG's)

The movie captured the stories from three (3) countries; Rwanda, Eithopia and Indonesia. In Adama Eithopia, where a health clinic is treated HIV/AIDS patients, the movie captured the activities of some men, they are are putting up a construction. The treatment that they received enabled them to be healthy enough to go about their daily business; make furniture, tends farms and raising stock. Certain amount of income that they earned is shared to the clinic.

In Rwanda more than a thousands doctors treating 79.000 patients at 400 clinics across the nation. The integration of treatment of this three diseases seemed to be effective in a way that the patients tends to acquired more than one diseases at the same time.

While in Indonesia, Ketut Budiarsini who was diagnosed with HIV while she was pregnant gave birth to a healthy child and she is healthy enough to be able to raise her and continue received treatment from the clinic.

These view immediately answers my previous questions. The global funds program in a way has restored the dignity of human lives. What is so special about the global funds is unlike most programs of which the funding resources is 100% from donors, this program make the participating countries invest 30% of the total funds. This allows greater share of responsibilities among the stakeholders. Overall the Global funds has achieved three important outcomes (1) Rising economies, (2) Healthier Communities and (3) Building partnerships.

At the end I agree with Ms Phumaphi remarks about development program. It is about people, it is about improving the quality of life and it's improved when they owned the development process.