PHA-Exch> Global health inequity is growing

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Bridget Lloyd bridget at hst.org.za


  From Health-e http://www.health-e.co.za/news/article.php?uid=20032120

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   *Global health inequity is growing*
12.11.2008 Anso Thom, Health-e

*A staggering 854-million people were undernourished between 2001 and 2003
while at the other end of the scale 700-million people are likely to be
obese by 2015, according to the Global Health Watch (GHW) 2. *

Launched in Cape Town, the Global Health Watch <http://www.ghwatch.org/>2 is
an alternative world health report and includes the voices of civil society
organisations and scientists from around the world.

More than half the people in the world (3,5-billion) live in poverty and
although more money is now available for health, this is not being used
wisely or efficiently and it also isn't reducing inequalities, according to
the Global Health Watch <http://www.ghwatch.org/>

The report shows that while global health spending has risen, crucial public
health priorities have been neglected – donors favour curative approaches
and many overlook the importance of preventing sickness by supporting the
supply of clean water and sanitation. Around 4 500 children die every day
because of poor hygiene and sanitation.

"The grim reality for millions of people is a depressing and undignified
life of having to live in a smelly world full of untreated shit," write the
authors.

"In many areas, people are reduced to defecating in plastic bags and
throwing their faeces (flying latrines) into ditches; they may defecate in
fields and behind bushes, or in flimsy structures from which their faeces
fall into ponds or lakes (hanging latrines) and contaminate sources of
drinking water. Children walk over faeces-ridden fields barefoot to
schools."

The GHW found that the proportion of development assistance allocated to
improving access to clean water and adequate sanitation had actually fallen
since 1990 and slum dwellers in Lagos, Nigeria pay 40 times as much for
water as residents in downtown New York.

There was also a lack of co-ordination and coherence among donors and global
health institutions, and higher transaction costs among a bewildering number
of actors, including increasing numbers of highly-paid consultant and
bureaucrats, the GHW said.

The report makes stinging criticisms of key global actors, including the
World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank and the Gates Foundation.
The report calls on governments to stop the Bank from meddling in health
politics and expresses concern that although the Gates Foundation has
injected vast sums of money into global health, it operates in an
undemocratic way and reinforces a medical-technical approach.

The GHW also highlights the pressure exerted on the WHO by "powerful and
vested interests" that would prefer WHO's activities and programme to have a
more biomedical and less political focus.

The report also hits out at the "rich developed world" where there is a lack
of access to essential health care for asylum seekers and migrants. The
developed world hosts only 30% of official refugees and asylum seekers
globally, but it implements increasingly harsh measures to prevent people
from seeking and receiving asylum.

In Australia AU$160-million of foreign aid was used to detain asylum seekers
in off-shore detention centres, for example.

"While rich countries benefit from the extraction of natural resources from
many poor countries, the people from those countries who seek a better life
are shunned, stigmatized and incarcerated," the GHW said.

The report said that the world's global health crises were often presented
as problems that are unfortunate, unforeseen or tragic. They are rarely
presented as an outcome of policies that work in favour of the rich and
powerful.

This is the second Global Health Watch, with the first one launched a few
years after the first People' Health Assembly which was held in Bangladesh
in 2000 when some 1 500 people from 75 nations attended and drew up the
People's Health Charter. The Charter called for action on the root causes of
ill-health and the lack of access to essential health care, setting the
agenda for the People's Health Movement.- health-e news.
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