August 2014 National Grassroots Conference Call – Global Poverty Campaigns

Recording available on website:

Dr. Joanne Carter, Executive Director

Welcome everyone to the RESULTS Global Poverty Conference Call for August 2014. Welcome especially to new folks.

As I was getting ready for this call I was thinking truly how honored I am to be working with all of you and the opportunity we have in the world right now that we’ve helped make possible, and the great work you’re doing.

In this political environment where everything is so fractured and partisan, you moved 10 Republicans and 22 Dems so far on a resolution in support of the work of GAVI to make lifesaving immunizations available to the world’s poorest countries and communities. This resolution is just the first stage of a six month campaign focused on Congress, the Obama Administration and media to get a bold $1 billion US pledge for GAVI. And also to help support other key child survival reforms and investments. But this demonstration of bipartisan support is a key first step and I’ll be honest that I was a bit skeptical about what we could do with a resolution to make it bipartisan in this environment—but you surprised and impressed me. This is a fantastic start. We’ve already started meeting with the administration on GAVI and we’re already pointing to the resolution to show the huge bipartisan support out there.

It’s also really important to ask your members of Congress to weigh in on the 2016 administration budget for child health that’s being decided RIGHT NOW. If that overall child health budget is flatlined or cut then we won’t be able to fully fund GAVI or other critical child survival priorities.

Fully funding GAVI will allow us to reach one billion children by the early 2020s, nearly double the number of lives saved since GAVI was started, and unlock an estimated 100 billion dollars or more in economic benefits. But also remember that that these vaccines are the edge of the wedge to literally ending preventable child deaths and ensuring that we reach all children with the health care system.

I want to thank you for all of your work to get face-to-face meetings this month with your representatives and senators and say again that there is literally nothing you can do to have more direct impact on your members of Congress and on our agenda than meeting face-to-face in the district this month. We’ve heard over and over from members of Congress and their staff that meeting members face-to-face as constituents is the most powerful way to influence them.

And if you haven’t gotten a meeting confirmed yet—keep asking because persistence will pay off. And you’ve still got nearly a month. And if you’re having trouble getting that meeting, think who else in your community you might include in the meeting request who might help get the meeting and make it more powerful. I am always surprised that many influential folks who have access to MoCs aren’t necessarily taking the opportunity to use that access and want to make a difference when asked.

And use town hall meetings with your member of Congress or candidate forums—both as a powerful way to have your voice and our issues heard by your member of Congress and others in your community, but also as a great place to ask for a face-to-face meeting to follow-up. A member of Congress will almost always say yes, and then you have them on the record agreeing to a meeting. You’ll hear later in the call about how a group used town halls to build a relationship with one of our Republican GAVI cosponsors.

Now it’s my huge honor to introduce Dr. Joan Awunyo-Akaba of Ghana.

Joan is a passionate and powerful advocate for child immunization and the involvement of communities in delivering vaccines and strengthening health care delivery. As the civil society representative on the GAVI Alliance Board, and a member of GAVI's civil society steering committee, Joan leads international civil society efforts to help shape GAVI programs and policies.

Joan is the founder and executive director of Future Generations International (FUGI), a Ghanaian-based NGO focusing on health promotion and development and plays a key role nationally as well as globally in ensuring health policies take into account the needs of the poorest families and communities. She holds a PhD in medical sociology from the University of Ghana, and a master's degree in community health from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Joan we’d love to hear your perspective on the need and impact of vaccines in Ghana and why US support for GAVI is so critical.

Guest Speaker: Joan Awunyo-Akaba

Hello to all grassroots. On behalf of Ghana and other developing countries supported by GAVI, a very big thank you to you and all American people for the support you have given to help end preventable child deaths.

You are so positive and your actions are crucial so children can be healthy not because of where they are born but because of the generosity of your government.

It’s gratifying to let you know that for past years, children in Ghana have not died single death from measles. In past, most children never lived to see their 5th birthday because of measles.

One of my friends, a mother, had two children. Her daughter died from measles and to this day she is sad for the loss. This child who died is not just a statistic. She was a real human being who had bonded with her mother. And her child ended up dying from a vaccine preventable disease called measles.

Thanks to GAVI and all of you who support it to ensure countries are able to buy vaccines. Now in Ghana measles deaths are deaths of the past.

Joanne: Thank you for the political leadership that you are able to build in Ghana and internationally and also building civil society engagement. Do you have any final comments for our grassroots?

Joan: I want to thank your grassroots groups for their interaction with GAVI. We need to have in mind that GAVI wants another replenishment. It’s an incredible partnership that the world has put together to make sure vaccines get to the children who need them. Survival of this partnership depends on contributions that come for GAVI so that the partners can do what they do best and save children’s lives. The 2016-2020 replenishment is what we’re going in to now. The theme for this replenishment is efficacy. We need to strengthen supply chain systems. All of us can work together to have our respective governments appreciate efforts they've made in the past and we also want to continue this effort so we can reach the 5th child. I’m happy to note that your administrator (Shah) said it’s not that we do not want to be part of the group of immunization efforts, but we have the will to do so. Goodwill has been shown.

I encourage you to stand up with new determination. Children should live and enjoy their 5th birthday regardless of continent that child was born. All of us together, one way or the other, we will support GAVI to reach the 5th child.

Joanne: I’m honored by your partnership, and we’ll do everything possible to make sure the US delivers the $1B and also make sure that our partners in other countries are working to do the same.

Q&A:

Q: It’s very inspirational, especially to hear about your friend who’s child passed away from measles. I work in public health in my community. How much does the public health infrastructure support provision of vaccinations to children? What is the interplay between global health initiatives and public health structures?

Strengthening health systems and the public health structure is a strategy that GAVI wants to promote going forward. The system is very important. Children are not being reached because of poor immunization systems. Vaccines need to get right down to the community level oftentimes going from the national level to regions and provinces (Ghana has 10 regions), and then from regions to districts (over 200 in Ghana). Vaccines from the national level pass through all of these levels to get to the children.

Once they are at the local level, mothers still have to walk long distances to these areas. Some mothers are not able to walk the distance. There are challenges in the systems.

We’re looking forward to GAVI’s new strategy to make sure the needs in these rural areas are met. We need to strengthen supply chain systems so that vaccination will become viable in the most remote areas.

Civil society is pushing at the national level to strengthen these systems within countries so that we can ensure, with the work of all of you who work so hard to get money to GAVI, the vaccines can get to children.

Vaccines must get to child. That is the focus of civil society. We must strengthen the supply chain system so that this can happen. The public health system and supply chain system are both critical.

Q: What is the reaction in the villages and smaller communities when parents find out their children have access to new vaccinations? Excitement? Trepidation? Talk about the reaction of the communities.

There is excitement for the parents because we know our children are going to live longer. When the pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines were introduced on the same day, it was a national celebration. This is because civil society got good information to mothers about vaccines. Many of them knew that these were the top killers of children. Communities were very much aware of these diseases, so the communities were excited for the vaccines.

Civil society can be involved and play an important role in the promotion of vaccination by educating mothers and community leaders. Community leaders know that children are no longer dying in their communities from diseases prevented by vaccines and they are excited from this. Because of this education and information there was no vaccine hesitance.

The key here is the involvement of civil society to do community education, information, and mobilization for vaccination. When we educate about vaccines we also tell people about the new vaccines coming and also about the importance of hygiene, clean water, the environment, etc. because those factors can still cause diarrhea and disease. We try to strengthen the relationships between civil society, the people who render immunizations and leaders because this education is so important in order to prepare on the ground to prevent vaccine hesitancy.

Q: I know you talked about the supply chain and infrastructure, such as building roads, bridges, etc. I’m wondering if GAVI plays a role in that infrastructure-building? Is that something that is expected from the country receiving funding? Or does GAVI tell them where roads and bridges are needed to have a good supply chain system?

This is for the civil society to address. The immunization supply chain should be a collaborative effort. Everyone should do their part whether it’s building the roads, bridges, funding for projects, etc. It’s a national issue to address. And where we have political will, the leaders will realize the importance of improving roads and bridges so that supply chain can be effective and vaccines can reach the most remote communities. By building the political will, they’ll become more receptive to these needs.

As a GAVI-funded country, our government contributes to GAVI for vaccines too because it’s a partnership. In the future, we need to look at heat resistant vaccines so we don’t need the cold chain. Then we could make sure that the vaccines can go in the remote areas more successfully.

Joanne: I want to thank the groups that have done some amazing fundraising. Thank you to the folks in Montana, in Salt Lake City, Denver, Olympia, Tacoma, Kitsap, Prince Georges County, DC . . . and others I may have missed.

Finally, I was part of a breakfast meeting last Monday with the President of the World Bank and a number of African government leaders and ministers talking about the economic benefits of investment in child nutrition and health during the Summit of African leaders in Washington. If we invest now it will be the driver of economic growth in Africa. But if we fail these kids—when repeated bouts of illness and malnutrition leave kids permanently stunted mentally and physically-- then we can’t go back and fix it. They have only once chance, and that’s what’s at stake.

Crickett Nicovich, Senior Policy Associate

Hi everyone! Crickett here in Washington, DC, where it’s crazy quiet as Congress has gone back to their districts to be with you for August recess.

Some legislative updates since we last met for the conference call, we’re excited to say that on July 25th, Representative Betty McCollum and Representative Dave Reichert finally introduced a house resolution – H.Res. 688 in support of the GAVI Alliance and Global Immunization.

Thanks to your incredible efforts – both with your lobby meetings at the International Conference and your follow up work afterwards, the resolution was introduced with strong bi-partisan support. It included 18 original co-sponsors – half Republicans and half Democrats – congratulations! Some notable members already on the resolution are the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Engel of NY (D), and the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs - Africa and Global Health Subcommittee Rep. Karen Bass of CA. We also had great Republican support from the House Foreign Affairs Committee – including Rep. McCaul of Texas and the Deputy Majority Whip, Rep. McHenry of North Carolina. Additionally there were 3 members of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations – including two republicans – Rep. Crenshaw and Rep. Diaz-Balart, and our Global health champion Rep. Barbara Lee – a Democrat from CA.

Just to reiterate what Joanne said at the top of the call: this resolution will be the first tool in a list of actions we will take toward moving the administration toward a bold commitment to GAVI in early 2015. We now have 31 signers on this resolution and the goal set by the regional coordinators is to get 115 co-sponsors by the end of September. As we’ve set this big goal, we are providing several tools for you including the August action sheet which is posted online and out in the weekly update. We will also hold a webinar this Thursday the 14th to talk about how to frame the conversations with your members of Congress on why GAVI and why now.

Truly, we cannot overs state that Congressional support for a multi-year commitment for the GAVI Alliance will be incredibly critical, especially as we look to the 2016-2020 strategy period that we are looking to fund - which will extend well past this current administration’s work on child survival. We will need a groundswell of political support from Congress to support GAVI in those out years and getting members of Congress to support a resolution is a first step in us building that political will we will need to get a multi-year commitment funded. To note, we are also still working on getting a bi-partisan Senate resolution introduced. If you think your senator is a good candidate for this, let me, Ken or Lisa know and we can support you in follow-up.

Again, as Joanne mentioned, GAVI and vaccines are just one piece of our broader work around ending preventable child deaths. Because of nature of really tight budgets around foreign aid, in fiscal year 2016, we will need a bigger commitment from the Administration up front to provide the space for increasing funding for the maternal and child health accounts. FY16 decisions are being made now. If you have members of Congress who you have gotten on the GAVI resolution, or those that ask, “What else can I do?”, then take them to the next level. Ask them to write a letter to President Obama asking for increasing the maternal and child health and nutrition accounts for FY16. We are asking for $850 million for MCH and $200 million for nutrition. Ken Patterson sent around a sample letter to the President that representatives and senators could send that you can use in your face-to-face meetings this August recess. To have a real impact on next year’s budgets we need those letters sent in the next two months. Your work and efforts on the GAVI resolution and on FY16 efforts are incredibly timely and thanks for all your work this August to move that forward.

Grassroots Café – Ken Patterson, Director Global Grassroots Advocacy

Happy 221st day of the year of 2014. We have only 144 days left this year to move the Administration to making a $1 billion, 4-year commitment on GAVI. Let’s stay active and use it wisely.

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Dr. Scott Leckman - results of the Grassroots Board election: Congratulations, Vanessa Garcia and Cynthia Changyit Levin!

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Our grassroots board members play a critical role in RESULTS, bringing the voice of volunteers to governing body of the organization. Thanks to everyone who ran for a position and for those who are taking on this service to RESULTS.