Global Health Watch calls for action to reduce health inequalitie - report 2005

The Global Health Watch 2005-2006, a major report that aims to stimulate dialogue and advocacy on a broad range of health issues, was launched on 20 July 2005.

The report places equity, social rights and the politics and economics of development at the centre of health debates. "Real action at community level" is what the report hopes to stimulate, said Lancet editor Richard Horton at the London launch.

Analysis of the impact of international and transnational institutions and corporations on health has led the report's authors to criticise market-driven policies that damage the health and wellbeing of the poorest people worldwide.

The report proposes an alternative way forward that revitalises the goal of equitable health services for all by strengthening civil society and democratising decision-making about health and wellbeing.

The performance of global health institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and World Trade Organization (WTO) comes under scrutiny in the report. The impact on health of multinational corporations and the G8 nations is also monitored.

WHO is still needed, stressed all the speakers at the London launch of the report, but it needs to be reformed. Better funding, more responsiveness to the needs of poor countries and civil society and better management are all needed.

One speaker said the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent a welcome shift away from policies for private profit which came out of an "evidence-free zone" and dominated debates about health in the 1980s and 1990s. However he went on to say: "The Millennium Development Goals fail to chart the path that tells us how to get to the health outcomes in 2015."

Another speaker stressed that in a world with a global economic system dominated by transnational corporations, a human rights framework - in which nation states are held to account by their citizens - is inadequate for ensuring health and wellbeing, particularly of people living with poverty. Wealth as well as poverty needs to be analysed. And linkages between health workers, academics, civil society, governments and international organisations will need to be strengthened in order to move towards the goal of "health for all".

The report arises out of a long history of civil society and professional campaigns and struggles for better health, and has been released to coincide with the Second People's Health Assembly, in Cuenca, Ecuador, at which two thousand people from across the world have gathered to find strategies to overcome the political, economic and social barriers to better and fairer health.

»Download a copy of the Global Health Watch report from the GHW website

The Global Health Watch is a broad collaboration of public health experts, non-governmental organisations, civil society activists, community groups, health workers and academics. It was initiated by the People's Health Movement, Global Equity Gauge Alliance and Medact. Exchange is one of Global Health Watch's many supporters.

Global Health Watch calls for action to reduce health inequalities