PHA-Exchange> Re: bangkok charter

[Jaime Breilh]

I basically agree with Dave´sline of thinking.
One important concern is to make sure that crucial concepts are clearly
stated. As an example I find that the term globalization -rightly considered
by the charter a fundamental health determinant- becomes ambiguous and
innocuous unless we spell out and mention its basic elements: property
transnational concentration; land tenure concentration; corresponding
massive social exclusion; market fundamentalism; public resources
privatization, drainage or appropriation; and resulting loss of human rights
applicability through the process of conversion of rights in commodities.
Additionally, the related problems of formal electoral democracy and
unicultural euro-centric human development. These kind of problems are the
real roots of health inequity and they should be stated in any charter that
aims at collective alternative action.



In other words I found the Bangok declaration interesting in broad terms but
lacking profound social and cultural innovation lines, and correspondingly
it can easily be absorbed by the power structure and become functional to
it.



Dr. Jaime Breilh (Md. PhD)
Centro de Estudios y Asesoría en Salud (CEAS)
(Health Research and Advisory Center)
Asturias N2402 y G. de Vera (La Floresta)
Quito, Ecuador (S. América)
Tel fax: (593-2) 2506175 y (593-2) 2566714
Móvil: (593-9) 9707743
jbreilh at ceas.med.ec

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David McCoy" <d.mccoy at ucl.ac.uk>
To: <pha-exchange at lists.kabissa.org>
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2005 4:34 AM
Subject: PHA-Exchange> bangkok charter


> Dear all
>
> I agree with others on the draft of this charter. The question is how to
> respond? Do we oppose the Charter at this stage (we are unlikely to
> block it or get it re-written). Perhaps we should submit some demands
> for changes now, and only after it is finalized, we should oppose it
> .... possibly with an 'alternative text' built on the Peoples health
> Charter?
>
>
> Some of specific changes we could ask for at this stage might be:
>
> Page 2: Global challenges
> Replace 'health inequalities remain a grave concern' with 'poverty and
> health inequalities have grown over the last twenty years'
>
> Page 2: Health promotion in a gloalising world
> Add this:
> Globalization can also .... "reduce the social and economic development
> prospects of communities, particularly those that are marginalized and
> impoverished"
>
> Page 3: Under 'Make globalization health friendly'
> Ask to add a bullet on addressing political and economic inequality
>
> Page 3: Under 'Make health promotion a core responsibility of all
> governments'
> Change to .... "Develop appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks to
> PROTECT HEALTH FROM COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY, promote APPRPORIATE,
> SUSTAINABLE AND HEALTH-PROMOTING public-private PARTNERSHIPS and
> inter-sectoral collaboration
>
>
> Page 3: Under Corporate Practices section ... we could ask for:
> - Reduce levels of tax avoidance
> - Say something about exploitation of cheap labour
> - Ask for something to do with transparency - to allow corporate
> activities to be monitored for the social, health and environmental
> impacts
>
>
> In the rest of the document, we could ask for a greater emphasis on
> strengthening the public structures of democratic control and
> accountability, and tempering the language around public-private
> partnerships by asking for a distinction between for profits and
> not-for-profits??
> Cheers
>
> dave
>
>
>
>
> ---
> PHA-Exchange is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa
> To post, write to: PHA-Exchange at lists.kabissa.org
> Website: http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/pha-exchange
>