PHA-Exchange> In preparation of PHA II - part 7

[Claudio]

Significant Gains made by the People's Health Assembly and the Movement:

 

Noteworthy is the ongoing and growing mobilization process at global level, the Assembly as a historic first gathering and the Movement that has evolved from it. In more detail, the gains include the following: 

 

-For the first time in decades, health and non-health networks have come together to work on global solidarity in health. These networks include the International People's Health Council (IPHC); Health Action International (HAI); Consumers International (CI); the Asian Community Health Action Network (ACHAN); the Third World Network (TWN); the Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR); Gonoshasthya Kendra (GK) and the Dag Hammaeskjold Foundation (DHF). In the last couple of years, new networks like the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) and the Social Forum Network are linking with us. 

-Even at country level, in some regions, this coalescence is beginning to happen. In India, for instance, the national collective now includes the science movements; the women's movements; the alliance of people's movements; the health networks and associations; some research and policy networks and even some trade unions.

-Another significant development has been the evolving solidarity PHM has found for its various collective documents at  the global level (People's Health Assembly  2000b & c). These have included themes such as:

-Health in the era of globalization: from victims to protagonists; The political economy of the assault on health; 

-Equity and Inequity Today: some contributing social factors; 

-The medicalization of Health Care and the challenge of Health for All; 

-The environmental crisis: threats to health and ways forward; 

-Communication as if people mattered: adapting health promotion and social action to the global imbalances of the 21st century. 

Taken together, these documents represent an unprecedented, emerging, global consensus.

At country level, such consensus documents that support public education and public policy advocacy have been upcoming. In India, for instance, five little booklets, translated into most Indian languages, are now available on the following five themes: 

-What globalization means people's health; 

-Whatever happened to Health for All by the year 2000; 

-Making life worth living by meeting the basic needs of all; 

-A world where we matter: focus on health care issues of women, children, street kids, the disabled and the aged; and, 

-Confronting the commercialization of health care. 

These booklets have been published by 18 national networks that form the national coordinating committee in India; this represents an unprecedented consensus, the first of its kind in five decades!



(part 8, final, to follow)

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