PHA-Exchange> Global Health Watch Update 7 - February 2005

[Global Health Watch]

Global Health Watch
Mobilising Civil Society around an Alternative World Health Report

GHW Update 7 - February 2005
Welcome to our February edition!!!

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TURNING TO ADVOCACY
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We are nearing the end of the first stage of our Global Health Watch
journey - the publication will go to press at the beginning of March. As it
does, we want to alert you to the next stage of our work - ADVOCACY.

In many respects this is the key component of the Watch. This is how the
publication will become noticed; this is also how we can expand and glue
together the individuals and movements who have contributed with those who
did not.

The last chapter will point at the areas that need to be looked at and
prioritise some recommendations. We will spend more time on honing our key
messages in the accompanying summary document that will be produced by
mid-May. The main book will link to this summary document.

We want to encourage a broad participation in the production of the summary
document - in the end we want this document to contain some strong
statements that as many health and health-related actors can campaign around
as possible; as well as containing key advocacy messages we want to project
to the world at the time of PHA 2

A draft will be available by the end of March, and then we will give a month
for consultation about the key messages with a wide range of interested
actors.

Yours sincerely,
GHW Secretariat


HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE GHW REPORT 2005 - THE RIGHT TO FOOD
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Under-nutrition seems to be inexplicable in a world where the food market
ascends to the 11% of the global trade and food prices have decline over the
last years. Nevertheless it is one of the most important causes of illness
and death globally as well as a key factor in poverty reproduction.

This chapter looks at the underlying causes of under and over nourishment
both in developing and developed countries as directly related to the
globalisation and liberalisation processes that have been taken place in the
last decades. By implementing global marketing strategies and liberal
programmes such as NAFTA, small local producers have been displaced from the
market leaving the food system under the control of few global corporations
based in developed countries.  Thus generating poverty and inequalities as
well as a decline in agricultural and rural investment in developing
countries, not mentioning the threat posed by the growing market of
genetically modified seeds.

Another dimension of the problem closely intertwined with the latter, is the
globalisation of diets around the globe.  This process has been encouraged
to a great extend by international organisms such as the World Bank (which
offers loans in order to develop certain type of food industry) as well as
the entry of large food multinationals and retailers.  The consequences are
manifold, there is a cultural impact in terms of the progressive shift from
diverse traditional local food towards a westernised homogeneous diet and on
the other hand problems of over-nutrition and obesity are becoming new
public health burdens.  These are difficult to overcome not only because of
the complexity of the problem itself but because of the pressure exerted
from big food companies.

Towards the end of the chapter various strategies to tackle the problem are
proposed, such as the development of international standards and national
legislation in order to protect and promote national food security. Finally
there is a call civil society to take a more active role in restoring food
to the status of a human and cultural right.


GHW AT THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM
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The fifth edition of the World Social Forum was held between 26 and 31 last
month. This was the biggest ever edition of the Forum and congregated more
than 150,000 participants in the Brazilian City of Porto Alegre. The
enormous gathering of groups and movements from all corners of the world was
an inspiring opportunity to debate, share experiences and network.

One of the GHW Secretariat members, Claudia Lema, attended the WSF last
week. She facilitated a workshop organised by IFRHHO (International
Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations) and chaired by the UN
Special Rapporteur for the Right to Health discussing strategies to use
Millennium Development Goals as tools for the achievement of the right to
health. She also had meetings to discuss the Global Health Watch initiative
with the representatives from ALAMES (Latin American Association of Social
Medicine), Action Aid and the European Network for the Right to Health, as
well as the members of the various chapters of the Peoples Health Movement.


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