PHA-Exchange> Reporting back from Mexico City

Thu Dec 2 18:27:09 PST 2004

From: PHM - Secretariat 

Greetings from PHM Secretariat (Global)!                                               December 1, 2004

Reporting back from Mexico City

A 12 member contingent of PHM members and resource persons attended the Ministerial Summit on Health Research organized by WHO and the Ministry of Health of Mexico and the Global Forum for Health Research - Forum 8. Both meetings were hold in parallel in Mexico City from 16th to 20th November 2004. The PHM presence, input and impact was quite significant. The team included - Ravi Narayan (PHM Secretariat), David Sanders (South Africa), Zafrullah Chowdhury (Bangladesh), Arturo Quizhpe (Ecuador), Fran Baum (Australia), Dave McCoy (UK), Nadia Gasman (Mexico); Jose Utrera (Netherlands), Lanny Smith (USA), Nance Upham (Geneva), Hasheem Mannan (USA), Ritu Priya (India).

The key highlights were the following:

Organizational Support

  1.. PHM had been invited to be a member of the organizing committee of the Ministerial Summit, which began the planning process from Forum 6 at Arusha, Tanzania in 2003 (David Sanders of South Africa and Convener of Research Circle was PHM's nominee on the committee). At the Ministerial Summit, David was the theme coordinator for the track on Civil Society, Gender and Ethics. PHM was also shown in the programme as partners, who have provided support for preparatory activities and the organization of the summit along with GFHR, COHRED, MOH Mexico, PAHO, SIDA, DFID, SDC and Foundation and trusts!!

Background Papers

  2.. PHM was invited to be a member of a special WHO Task Force on Health System Research, which wrote the main background document for the meeting. David and Ravi  were invited to be on the Task Force. [See report entitled "Informed Choices for attaining the Millennium Development Goals: Towards an International Cooperative agenda for Health Systems Research" in The Lancet vol 364, September 11, 2004 and www.thelancet.com].

  3.. Even though some PHM concerns (not all) were included in the Task Force report (above), it was felt that a stronger and more focused PHM view point on the challenges of Health System Research should also be made a background document, which was accepted and supported by WHO and the Lancet.

A dialogue of PHM related researchers was held in June at Durban linked to Equinet / GEGA and other meetings and the commentary based on a larger report, was published in the Lancet under the section view point entitled "Pushing the International Health Research agenda towards Equity and Effectiveness", authored by David McCoy, David Sanders, Fran Baum, Thelma Narayan and David Legge.

(See The Lancet - vol 364, October  30, 2004 and www.thelancet.com)

  4.. The Bulletin of the World Health Organization (also the International Journal of Public Health) brought out a special thematic issue entitled "Bridging the know-Do gap in Global Health (volume 82, Number 10, October 2004)
A contribution entitled "Making Research Matter: A Civil Society perspective on Health Research", by David Sanders, Ronald Labonte, Fran Baum and Mickey Chopra was another key contribution to the background materials from the PHM research circle.

[All these three special journal issues were circulated at the Mexico Summit and GFHR Forum 8 as background documents].

  5.. Ravi's, short abstract "What Evidence? Whose Evidence? Who Decides? - Challenges in Health Research to achieve the MDGs and respond to the 10/90 gap" was selected by the programme committee and featured as one of the keynotes in the opening plenary of GFHR - Forum 8. His paper animated by provocative people oriented cartoons and case studies proved to be a 'great inspiration and provocation' and was then regularly quoted by other speakers in other plenaries and parallel sessions.

PHM was also referred to in the same session by Ilona Kickbush (Switzerland) in her opening keynote - 'Public Health in the 21st Centruy and the Role of Health Research' and by Dr. Suwit Wibulpolprasert (Thailand) in his keynote on 'War, Economic growth and health'.

  6.. PHM was invited to organize one of the working sessions of the Ministerial Summit on Health Research on 17th November on the theme "Involving Civil Society and the Lay Public in Health Systems Research to enhance Equity and Effectiveness". This session was coordinated by Dave, David and Ravi.

Dr. Manuel Dayrit (Health Minister of Philippines) and Zafrullah Chowdhury (PHM Bangladesh) chaired the session. Dave presented a summary of the Durban meeting of CSOs on Health Systems Research, based on The Lancet commentary. Ravi presented a short case study on "People's Health Tribunals in India" and David Sanders a case study on "The Mount Frere Project of Civil Society improving health systems". Dr. Malek Afzali, Medical Education Minister of Iran and Dr. Suwit, Senior Adviser on Health Economics, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, responded followed by a lively discussion. It was resolved that a recommendation for greater involvement of Civil Society researchers in Health Policy and health systems development at local, national and international level, should be included in the Summit declaration.

  7.. PHM team members made other inputs into several parallel sessions and meetings in both the Summit and Forum 8. These included:

Ministerial Summit

    1.. Developing a Health Systems Research Agenda for the MDGs (Discussant: David Sanders) 
    2.. Health Equity Research: From Science to Action (Discussant: Dave McCoy) 
    3.. Persons with Disabilities and the MDGs (Speaker: Hasheem Mannan, Discussant: Nance Upham) 
    4.. Making Research Matter: A Civil Society perspective on making health research matter for the MDGs (Speaker: David Sanders) 
    5.. Health policy and Systems Research: Informing the HIV / AIDS research agenda (Speaker: Ritu Priya) 
    6.. Participation as a means to enhance pro-poor policy process: A CSO perspective (Speaker: Jose Utrera) 
    7.. Financial Flows and Priority Setting (Discussant: Ravi Narayan) 
    8.. Civil Society organizations research in economics and health: Why, What and How - Poster session (Nance Upham)

  8.. Beyond the MDGs (Special COHRED / PHM Session)

A special session to provoke Forum 8 researchers to go beyond the MDGs to recognize the deeper social economic and political determinants and challenges was organized by PHM in collaboration with COHRED (Council on Health Research for Development)

The session was chaired by Lanny Smith (PHM USA) and the PHM speakers included Fran Baum (Changing Global Research agenda: A Call for greater focus on the social, economic and political determinants of health); Arturo Quizhpe (Militarism, conflicts and the MDGs); and David McCoy (Monitoring by Civil Society of the performance of global health institutions - the need for an alternative World Health Report)

Prof. Maksut of Kazhakistan and Ms. Pia Rockhold represented COHRED. David and Ravi participated as discussants. Since this was the last of the session in parallel, the key conclusions were fed into the opening remarks made by Marian Jacobs of COHRED, who chaired the final joint plenary of the Summit and Forum 8 on the 20th.

  9.. Two special request sessions were hosted by PHM resource persons on the evening of 18th November: 
    1.. Civil Society organizations as an untapped community resource in Health economics research (Chairperson: Nance Upham) 
    2.. Violence against women in Latin America and the Caribbean (Chair: Nadine Gasman)

  10.. On 19th November, a special meeting on the People's Health Movement, the Alternative World Health Report and the Second People's Health Assembly was organized during lunch and specially announced in the Forum 8 programme. It was attended by over a 100 participants and there was great enthusiasm to know more about PHM and to join and support its initiatives. 
  11.. PHM also ran a very well organized and popular stall in the Market Place, facilitated ably by Lanny Smith (PHM USA). A very large number of participants visited the stall to get to know about PHM, collect literature, make contacts and establish linkages. 

The News brief 13 was released and also two versions of the People's Charter for HIV / AIDS (GK Savar and Books for Change). The PHM paper in The Lancet was in great demand. PHM South Africa also released No. 1 of Critical Health perspectives, an e-bulletin.

  12.. Arturo Quizhpe, of Ecuador, organizing secretary of PHA 2, also held informal meetings with local civil society / NGOs and PHM contacts in Mexico City. 
  13.. In addition to the rather packed technical input by PHM, the Mexico meeting helped to establish very good contact of PHM amongst researchers, academics, policy makers, NGOs and Civil Society, Ministers of Health, WHO and related UN organizations and international health agencies. While these are too numerous to be enumerated fully, some key meetings and linkages may be mentioned. These included:

-         A rather rushed meeting of the PHM coordinator with Dr. Lee (WHO - DG), during one of the dinners. He agreed to join PHA 2, but we need to follow this up formally.

-         A special breakfast meeting with Dr. Mirta Roses, Director of PAHO, who promised full support of PAHO to PHA 2 and also the possibility of support to travel of local policy makers and special invitees from the region and for translation facilities.

-         An informal meeting with Ellen T'Hoen and her colleagues from Medicin Sans Frontiers (MSF), exploring collaborative initiatives of PHM with MSF at IHF / WSF and PHA 2.

-         A good interaction with the representatives of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations and of the International Pharmacy Students Association

-         A positive meeting with IDRC, and other Canadian contacts, who were willing to support GHW and other PHM activities.

-         Meetings with potential PHM contacts in countries where PHM is absent or still very poorly represented - Belgium, Cameron, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Haiti, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Norway, Romania , Saudi Arabia, Uganda, ,  Uruguay, etc.

  14.. The Mexico event was also a good time for PHM participants to share ideas, concerns, perspectives and initiatives among themselves in the numerous informal discussions over coffee / tea and meals, about PHM, GHW, PHA 2, regional concerns and initiatives. 
  15.. One of the most significant characteristics of the PHM Mexican input was that the presence of the PHM team was supported by WHO, GFHR, local universities and governments and the secretariat spent no funds of its own to support this important, significant, substantial, visible and comprehensive input by the PHM team. This is both a sign of PHM's evolving credibility and strategy. 

  16.. The PHM team ensured that at every opportunity possible, they provided stimulus to enhance, strongly and consistently:

·         Health for All perspectives

·         Primacy to social, economic, political, cultural determinants

·         Involvement Civil Society and People's organizations in health systems research and policy development

·         Contextualizing Health as a Rights issue, a political issue, a social, justice issue.  

These were also reflected in the final statement from the Summit and Forum.

However, much more concerted efforts grounded in a stronger people's organization base is required, if we have to impact more effectively in International Health Policy. Mexico was a strong step, but more and more needs to be done.

Best wishes

PHM Team in Mexico

Some Sound Bytes

"The Mexico Ministerial Summit must boldly and publicly assert that the traditional bio-medical model of health research is wholly inadequate to tackle disease alleviation in the less - developed world" 

- Lancet Editorial

"Give a shot to research before you get shot by donor drivers research

                     -          from PHM / Save the Children, UK,

   Poster on People's Health and Economic Research Forum

"We "rocked" and rolled toward social justice in this 
meeting with a palpable and qualitatively measurable influence on
outcomes (of the meeting)... We had more than 140 people sign-up to learn more about the PHM at the "social-place" table, the lunch meeting and the session Beyond MDG's....

-                                         Lanny Smith, PHM USA,

"I wanted everyone to know how successful the People's Health Movement involvement in the Mexican Ministerial Summit and Global Forum for Health Research meeting has been. Ravi did a wonderful job of organizing us all and there was a great presence for PHM at the meeting with much interest from the people present. Ravi's presentation received the loudest clap of all the sessions and he really managed to remind people that health is about people!  His address was inspiring and many people were commenting to that effect. A number of other speakers at the plenary sessions referred to Ravi's speech and he was well-quoted in the final plenary session. Everyone at the meeting will know of the PHM and know what the core mission is!

-          Fran Baum, PHM Australia

"It was really nice to get again involved in PHM. It was quite impressive presence and I hope you saw the article with Arturo's interview in the newspaper"

-          Nadine Gasman, PHM Mexico

"You have to bring the public back into public health"

-  Summit Bulletin on 19th November 2004, quoting Ravi of PHM 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20041203/6bd7bab2/attachment-0001.html>