Seattle, WA - Aug. 23, 2014  – One of the best ways to help a country is to do no harm while helping, argue a consortium of public health researchers, physicians, activists and funders in a comment published in the Aug. 23 edition of The Lancet.

The consortium, led by Health Alliance International, a UW-related nongovernmental organization, are pushing for donors and ministries of health to make signing the NGO Code of Conduct for Health Systems Strengthening, a condition for receiving funding or working in their countries.

The Code of Conduct, started by Health Alliance International, focuses on strengthening health systems within a country and sets ethical principles for groups to follow, including:

• Engaging in hiring practices that ensure long-term health system sustainability.
• Enacting employee compensation practices that strengthen the public sector.
• Pledging to create and maintain human resources training and support systems.
• Minimizing the NGO management burden for ministries of health.
• Supporting ministries of health as they engage with communities.
• Advocating for policies which promote and support the public sector.

“When the Code was first released in 2008, our focus was to get other NGOs on board and committed to a set of best practices to support public-sector health systems,” said James Pfeiffer, the executive director of Health Alliance International.  “But over time we’ve realized that if we really want to make sure that NGOs aren’t harming public-sector health systems, we have to get donors on board.”

The consortium includes representatives from Health Alliance International, the University of Washington, Health GAP, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the University of Colorado-Denver, and Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Dehli.

“The end of AIDS cannot be achieved through a patchwork of uncoordinated NGO projects, private providers, and underfunded public health systems,” the article concludes.  “Conscientious donors, using the NGO Code of Conduct, can help strengthen local services and build the public national health systems capable of producing an AIDS-free generation.”

Since 2008, 59 NGOs have signed the Code of Conduct, including Partners in Health, Oxfam, Health GAP, ActionAid, African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), and Physicians for Human Rights.

The article can be accessed on The Lancet’s website.

For a related podcast of James Pfeiffer speaking to Humanosphere, go here.