Trends in Aid and Aid Effectiveness in the Health Sector Title: Partnership for Development

The world has come together in 2000 to announce the Millennium Declaration as an expression of consensus on the urgency to act and address the critical issues behind the extremely poor living conditions of 1.2 billion people. The Millennium Development Goals ( MDGs) are the guiding document on what to be achieved with targets and indicators to monitor progress. The MDGs are ambitious, commensurate to the depth of the crisis that the affected countries can not deal with alone. Solidarity and collective effort were from the outset regarded as key pillars in the efforts to meet the targets; the need for the World to truly come together to ensure that the countries in need do move quickly from the substandard living conditions to set a platform for development 1. Now, halfway through the 2015 targets, we realize that although progress has been made most of the countries will not meet the targets unless an extraordinary and effective effort is made that addresses the critical issues. Health is key for development as healthy people are better fit for income generation and contribute to savings by avoiding the continuous and often high expenses with health care. On the other hand, the health indicators are a good gauge to assess the socioeconomic status of populations, and ultimately the development of a country. The health specific MDGs are the furthest lagging behind, and the majority of the most affected countries are not making progress at all. The analysis done by th