FRONTESPIZIO - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

2. The ethio-italian cooperation programme with special focus on the health sector 17Health and HIV/AIDSThe Ethiopian government developed a Health Sector DevelopmentProgramme, with the goal to achieve a heath care system that gives a comprehensiveand integrated primary health care at the community level emphasizingon disease preventive aspects without neglecting the curative aspects ofmedicine.Italian Contribution to the Health Sector Development Programme inEthiopia.In the framework of the Ethio-Italian Development Cooperation CountryProgramme, the Italian and the Ethiopian Governments entered into a bilateralagreement, in September of 2002, to finance the Ethiopian HealthSector Development Programme (HSDP).On the basis of this agreement, the Government of the Italy is supporting theHSDP through the provision of 15.75 million Euros in the form of a grant.The major areas of support include: Human Resource Development (HRD),Health Management Information System (HMIS), Strengthening thePharmaceutical Services, Hospital Management, Medical EquipmentSupport and Healthcare Financing.Besides the large commitment in the framework of the “Italian Contributionto the Health Sector Development Programme”, Italy also funds other healthinterventions and some iniziatives which contribute to the fight against HIVin Ethiopia.Multilateral Cooperation with WHO for the fight against HIV,Tuberculosis and Malaria. Through the channel of multilateral cooperationwith WHO, Italy is currently contributing to the fight against Tuberculosis(“Stop TB Partnership”, 1.8 million ?), to the “Global Programme onMalaria” (3 million ?), as well as within the “WHO-Italian Initiative onHIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa” (6 million ?): all the three programmes,focused on a number of African countries, include Ethiopia. Launched in2001, as technical partnerships between the Italian DevelopmentCooperation and the World Health Organization, the projects aim to addresspriority gaps in the response to the three epidemics and to contribute to theoverall purpose of controlling and reducing the impact of the diseases in Sub-Saharan countries. The country plans are being implemented through thetechnical cooperation between the Ethiopian Health and HIV/AIDSAuthorities, WHO and Italian Development Cooperation. The funds are