HANOI CORE STATEMENT ON HEALTH TOUCHES ON BROADER AID

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 001339 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/MLS, EAP/EP, INR, OES/STC, OES/IHA, OGAC STATE PASS TO USAID FOR ANE AND GH HHS/OSSI/DSI PASS TO OGHA (WSTIEGER/LVALDEZ/MABDOO) BANGKOK FOR RDM/A (CBOWES/MACARTHUR/MBRADY/MKLEINJAN) GENEVA FOR HEALTH ATTACHE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: TBIO PREL PGOV SOCI KHIV KFLU VM SUBJECT: HANOI CORE STATEMENT ON HEALTH TOUCHES ON BROADER AID EFFECTIVENESS AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY ISSUES REF: A. 2006 Hanoi 2803 B. Hanoi 370 THIS IS AN ACTION CABLE. PLEASE SEE PARAGRAPH 2. ¶1. (U) Summary. The Government of Vietnam (GVN) and several development partners have drafted a Statement of Intent (SOI) to improve the Vietnamese health care system, through improving development assistance, coordinating GVN and donor efforts, and increasing transparency and accountability. The GVN and these donors have negotiated a draft document modeled upon earlier international health development commitments and upon existing, successful partnerships among the GVN and its donor partners. At this late stage in the drafting process, major, substantive edits may result in U.S. exclusion from the final document. Such a result will have definite impacts on U.S. health policy goals in Vietnam. On balance, the in-country inter-agency team favors concurrence. End Summary. ¶2. Action Request: This cable provides relevant background information and context for the draft SOI and explains likely consequences should the United States choose not to sign or require significant, substantive edits to the document. We request inter-agency review and clearance of the draft SOI, forwarded by separate e-mail; provide edits and relevant justifications by January 10. We will need these explanations when we negotiate the final draft of the document. The Negotiating Process -------------- ¶3. (U) The GVN and several prominent development partners, including the United States, recently completed drafting the SOI on "Improving the effectiveness of development assistance for health." At the November 26, Health Partnership Group (HPG),the Ministry of Health (MOH) presented the "final draft" of the SOI, which the drafters modeled on the Paris Declaration (PD),referred to the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA),and built upon the Hanoi Core Statement (HCS), each of which has been signed by the United States. MOH and the World Health Organization (WHO) have signed off on the document, which they expect will only receive routine, legalistic changes during the clearance process with various development headquarters. Following headquarters clearance, we expect the GVN and development partners to sign the document in late February. Therefore, and because of the shut down of GVN and many diplomatic missions connected with the Tet Holiday, we will need suggested edits and clearances from Washington agencies by January 10 in order to review with the GVN and development partners and finalize the document for concurrence. The SOI -------------- ¶4. (SBU) For several years, health diplomacy has formed a prominent part of our Mission Strategic Plan and has been a principal catalyst to our expanding bilateral relationship with the GVN. Consistent with our health development goals, we have worked with MOH, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI),and development partners on a non-binding SOI, which will encourage the MOH (and the rest of the GVN) to take ownership of health programs, coordinates GVN and donor policy goals, technical programs, and financial contributions, improves transparency and accountability, and provides guiding priorities for budgeting and spending. This, in turn, may facilitate better leveraging of the substantial commitment the United States has made to the Vietnamese health sector, which in FY2008 totaled about USD 100 million (includes work in animal health). The SOI follows from the HCS, which is derived from the PD, both of which focus on aid effectiveness. Similarly, the drafters modeled the document on the highly successful Partnership for Avian and Human Influenza (PAHI) (ref A),which the United States helped craft and which has been held up around the world as a model for host country-donor cooperation. Difficult to Amend the Document -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Given the lengthy negotiation process already undertaken and the document's consistency with previously agreed upon international and bilateral agreements, we believe that MOH, MPI, and donor partners would not accept edits to the agreement that they HANOI 00001339 002 OF 003 do not view as consistent with the intent of PD and the reference to AAA. At this point, WHO, MOH and other development partners have reached consensus and anticipate only legalistic changes with headquarters clearance. The draft provided to Washington for review reflected the culmination of a seven month process and extensive (and finally successful) efforts to mediate inter-ministerial disagreements between MOH and the MPI. At the same time, Mission appreciates the inter-agency complexities and multi-lateral USG policy concerns on aid effectiveness raised by this document. ¶6. (SBU) The draft SOI reflects a carefully crafted compromise that balances the desire of MOH and most international donors to bolster GVN commitment to the health sector with MPI wishes to focus on specific actions. The compromise, largely brokered by the WHO, re-structured the document away from a pure advocacy document (consistent with the intent of the PD) by using formatting similar to the AAA. The final version is designed to increase and improve GVN health efforts. Throughout the drafting process, we encountered no evidence of undue influence by the European Commission or other like-minded parties. AAA language and format was inserted by the MPI to settle an inter-Ministerial debate with MOH over the balance between advocacy and action. In the Vietnam context, we do not feel that reference to AAA can be extracted, nor does the current version of the SOI imply any specific commitments beyond PD and AAA. Benefits to Concurrence -------------- ¶7. (SBU) The USG plays the principal role in bilateral health development and technical assistance to Vietnam. Beyond PEPFAR and influenza, the United States has cooperative work to build Vietnamese capacity in disabilities, tuberculosis, epidemiological training, good clinical practice, good aquaculture practice, human vaccine development, among others. On a broader level, the GVN and other donors view the United States as a leader in overall health development, including our participation in the Health Partnership Group (Ref B),the related Joint Annual Health Review (an open, transparent U.S. Institute of Medicine-like in-depth analysis of specific health sector issues),the development of this SOI. These efforts have established substantial good will and fostered credibility, which we have been able to use to advance U.S. policy goals and to ensure that the development of Vietnam's health sector remains consistent with U.S. views. For example, despite MOH and donor inertia, we were able to negotiate a broadening of this SOI to formally include other ministries and partnerships (including civil society) -- a concrete and strategic gain for our current investments in health, namely HIV and influenza. Risks To Not Signing Now -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Failure to concur with the current draft of the SOI will have consequences for U.S. health interventions in Vietnam and to our overall assistance program, in particular our strategy to pursue a more comprehensive approach to health systems strengthening and to improve the sustainability of U.S.-supported programs. Lack of action may decrease the substantial good will we have developed with our Vietnamese health partners, while also isolating us from other international donors and will make it more difficult to play a leading role in coordinating health policy. ¶9. (SBU) More specifically, the SOI is tied to the re-establishment and terms of reference for the HPG. This is the umbrella forum for all health-related partnerships. Originally a place to exchange information for the purposes of coordination, it has become a forum for policy development, using outside input from donors. While we anticipate that we could still participate in the HPG, our voice could be diminished and it would be awkward if we were the only country not formally part of the health alliance, founded on HCS and the follow-on SOI. [Note: Japan is likely the only other country that might have policy-related issues with the SOI; however, we have no evidence this is the case, and current conversations indicate that they intend to approve the document.] Further, there are other minor likely practical coordination challenges that will most certainly arise, such as being left off of various lists and meetings, which without increased diligence on our part, could result in decreased recognition of USG contributions in health, including in media reports. ¶10. (SBU) We do not think the process will come to a standstill if we do not concur with the SOI. If, in fact there is concern that we HANOI 00001339 003 OF 003 are somehow giving undue acceptance or weight to the AAA, we find it hard to draw that conclusion from the documents. In any case, this is not the kind of document that is going to influence global agreements or global assistance behavior. Indeed, the document provides explicitly for project and program funding in addition to budgetary and sectoral support as modalities for providing support. MICHALAK