PHA-Exchange> Healh abd civil society meeting (2)

Fri Dec 24 00:35:07 PST 2004

Health civil society  in East and Southern Africa:
Towards a unified agenda for people's health,  equity and justice

Background 

During 2002/3,  EQUINET , Peoples Health Movement (PHM), International People's Health Council (IPHC) and Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) identified a need for closer dialogue  and networking between health and related civil society in east and southern Africa to achieve common health goals. 

Civil society in this region has built strong platforms and made progress in advancing peoples health in a number of areas, including around broad health rights,  primary health care, patients rights, treatment access, corporate responsibilities to protect workers health,  resisting damaging health impacts of globalisation, resistance to privatisation of essential services for health and protecting rights of people living with HIV and AIDS.  Civil society has also, through broad networks like EQUINET and PHM and through participation in the Social Forum processes,  outlined policies for building equity and social justice in health and health care, particularly through a strong public sector health system. These wider platforms are, however, not strongly linked to the issue campaigns, while the issue campaigns are not necessarily all informed by the same analysis of the political and economic causes of ill health, of the health systems we are seeking to build or of the wider changes needed to achieve health goals.  

After consultation with other civil society groups it was agreed that we hold a meeting with representatives from major civil society networks working in health in east and southern Africa  to explore the goals of health civil society, the common positions and goals and to propose a mechanisms for enhancing the co-ordination and unity of health civil society to build common perspective and achieve common goals. 

This meeting was held in Johannesburg South Africa on November 26 2003 and involved 14 networks of health civil society (many of these with numerous individual health civil society members). While acknowledging differences amongst the groups in areas of work and advocacy targets, the meeting identified a number of common goals and values informing their work, namely:
-       We all aim for equity and justice and to realize the right to health 
-        We all seek to bring power to the people and to strengthen people's voice in decision making through organising, uniting people and building public consciousness. 
-        We all work in areas that impact on health and on the wider health system
-        We are all working for an alternative to the current neoliberal system,  and our perspective and practice is for a system that is based on solidarity, equity, justice and public interest, from local to global level
-        We act as a people's watchdog and monitor the performance of government and private sector against their commitments and the public interests, systems .  and values we are promoting. 

A common health civil society platform 

In November we recognised that to proactively build an alternative vision for health guided by goals of health for all, health as a right, and equity and social justice, we need to challenge the current paths to globalisation,  advance health within the national political economy and directly engage at local level on health issues in the interests of equity, justice and health rights. Some of the key areas identified are shown below: *

 To  take forward this consensus vision we agreed to 
-        consolidate and strengthen our influence and role as health civil society through building shared analysis and positions on health issues and strengthening our dialogue and networking;  
-        identify strategic issues that we need to take up jointly and across health civil society as a whole to advance our common platform, while giving wider solidarity on specific campaign issues within wider civil society platforms; 
Actions and progress 

In June 2004, health civil society members participated in the EQUINET regional conference and to engaged with wider constituencies in east and southern Africa working on equity and justice in health.  A civil society workshop at the conference resolved that the health civil society process started make efforts to include health worker, traditional health sectors, rural and urban civil society and union organisations in  its processes; use research, gathering of testimonials, education and as tools for strengthening the unity of and perspectives in health civil society and build joint civil society platform on equity and social justice in food security.  The health civil society groups contributed to the wider conference resolutions on commitments to equity and social justice in health, to public interests over commercial interests in health and to national, international and global relations and policies that promote these values and interests. 

In November we set up a planning committee made up of EQUINET, PHM, TAC and CWGH to take this forward and agreed to continue to work on the common position and analysis, widen the dissemination of information to and participation of health civil society groups and debate the common position and analysis within the members of health civil society. We also agreed to hold a regional meeting to strengthen our linkages and dialogue, consolidate our shared analysis and goals and the  strategies to take these forward and identify common goals, messages and campaigns that can unite and strengthen our various health campaigns.  

The planning committee met in Johannesburg in July 2004 and are proposing to hold the first regional meeting on February 17-19 2005 in Zambia. It is proposed that the meeting bring together  the leadership of health civil society organisations in east and southern Africa  to
-       review our current positions and analysis, identify areas where we share perspective and analysis and debate and review areas where we differ,   
-        build a unified and shared analysis, perspective and goals across health civil society to inform our individual and our joint platforms, strategies and campaigns 
-       identify key and critical common goals and positions and the strategies for taking these forward as health civil society in the region 
-        identify and agree on mechanisms for strengthening linkages,  resource sharing, solidarity action and unified campaigns across health civil society in east and southern Africa. 
-       Identify and agree on mechanisms and processes that will strengthen and build our capabilities for ensuring mandate from, voice and agency of and accountability to communities in this process.

Since then we have taken several steps. We are working on a document that brings together the various positions and resolutions put forward by different health civil society organisations so we can identify common positions and also areas of possible divergence or conflict for us to debate and February. We will circulate this for discussion later in the year.  We are widening outreach to health civil society organisations in the region and organising the February meeting that will bring the leaderships of these groups together. CHESSORE have agreed to host this meeting in Zambia (17-19 February). We are gathering and making available documents from health civil society and the work being done to share these and inform our discussions in February on platforms, strategies and processes.  

An invitation to participate and shape the way forward

We invite participation of health civil society organisations in this process.  If you share the goals and values and are a health civil society organisation in east or southern Africa you can 

1. Sign on to and be part of this process.

2. Send us information about your organisation, its scope and area of work, geographical cover, membership and contact information so we can include you in the information exchanges between health civil society in the region.  

3. Give us feedback on this briefing and on the background documents we send out to organisations that are participating in this process. 

4. Send us information on any positions, background documents, education materials  and activities that your organisation has developed and we will share these with other health civil society groups. 

5. Let us know if you are interested in participating in the regional meeting of health civil society leadership, February 17-19 2004 in Zambia, and provide the name, contact details and institutional position of the nominated participant.

Send your feedback to admin at equinetafrica.org  or mail to  EQUINET Secretariat (TARSC) 47 Van Praagh Ave, Milton Park, Harare, Zimbabwe Fax 263-4-737220.  

Prepared by 

Southern African Network on Equity in Health 
People Health Movement 
Community working Group on Health
Treatment Action Campaign and Pan African Treatment Access Movement 
Southern African Trade Union Co-ordinating council 
Health Action International  
CHESSORE

November 2004

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