PHA-Exch> EG4Health Newsletter 4

Sat Apr 25 05:58:26 PDT 2009

WELCOME TO THE EG4HEALTH NEWSLETTER! 

Newsletter 4, 24th March 2009
==========
In this newsletter from EG4H...
* Call for 'outreachers' to help spread our economic message
* Global social protection and health
* The private sector and health provision debate rolls on...
* Just out! Links to the latest briefs, reports, and events on economic governance for health

THE G20 - THE OLYMPICS OF SPIN?

CALL FOR 'OUTREACHERS' TO SPREAD THE MESSAGE OF ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE FOR HEALTH

Are you interested in helping us get the word out about the importance of economic governance for health?
==========
 Would you like to do more and join our active campaign outreach network? We have an expanding number of 'outreachers' who help **amplify** our message. Typically they do this by:
* Forwarding information about EG4H to your own network of contacts and lists 
* Encouraging people to respond to an EG4H request or to take up action on an event we are promoting.

**If you are interested in joining** this network of active campaigners, or can suggest organizations - or better still **key people within those organizations** - whom we should contact, please send an email to info at eg4health.org 

GLOBAL SOCIAL PROTECTION AND HEALTH

**"Without some form of global social protection, there will be no ‘truly global society"**
==========
This is the fundamental assertion behind Gorik Ooms' (ITM, Antwerp) and Dave McCoy's (EG4H) [latest blog](http://www.eg4health.org/2009/04/16/without-some-form-of-global-social-protection-there-will-be-no-truly-global-society/#more-1009) on the EG4H website.

Ooms and McCoy argue: "For most of the world, life is... precarious. Social security nets are at best patchy, if not non-existent. The effects of the financial crisis and subsequent economic recession and unemployment will be severe. Levels of absolute household poverty will rise with limited or no social security, and we can expect this to be translated into higher rates of mortality, malnutrition and disease.

This argument is picked up in [the Lancet](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current), in a recent editorial on the health consequences of the global financial crisis. In the editorial [Health slips as the Financial Crisis Grips](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673609607479/fulltext?rss=yes), the editorial argues:

"Since another favourite G20 phrase is 'global society', champions of social protection, which should include the international health community, must seize the moment by noisily raising the possibility of providing a global social security net, financed internationally and progressively, and build on national social protection mechanisms."

EG4H argues that as the so-called 'free' market produces winners and losers within and among states, and in the absence of any global mechanism to redistribute wealth and protect the most vulnerable from the excesses of inequitable global competition, radical steps are needed - not least to demand the "United Nations system lives up to its ideals and help create the multilateral will to institutionalise the concept of global social security."

PRIVATE-SECTOR FINANCING 

Who is running with the baton?
==========
In our last newsletter we summarised a debate initiated by Oxfam about the expansion of private-sector health care delivery. The baton has been picked up by the Centre for Global Development in blogs by two of the Centre's economics specialists - [April Harding](http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2009/02/oxfam-this-is-not-how-to-help.php) and [Mead Over](http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2009/03/public-delivery-of-aids-treatment-in-south-asia-a-timidly-heroic-assumption.php#more-694), and is now being carried round the track by a group of academics writing in the [BMJ]([http://www.bmj.com/]) accusing Oxfam of "ideological bias". [Read more](http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/338/feb16_2/b667#210071), including Oxfam's rebuttal of the charge.

JUST OUT! LINKS TO THE LATEST WRITING AND EVENTS ON ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE FOR HEALTH

IMF and World Bank
----------
**The IMF and World Bank** are holding their [Spring Meetings](http://www.imf.org/external/index.htm) on 25-26th April to discuss, amongst other things, "concrete proposals" for the allocation of all the additional funds promised by heads of states at the G20 Summit. 163 CSO groups signed a letter urging the IMF to:
* Phase out those activities outside its areas of core competence such as those of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF).
* Eliminate harmful conditions linked with its loan programs and other instruments.

The letter was handed directly to IMF head Mr Strauss-Kahn by Sue Perez of [Treatment Action Group](http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/).

Latest research on trade and health
----------
**[Health and Foreign Policy Bulletin](http://www.igloo.org/healthandforeignpolicy/download-nocache/Library/hfpbulleti~2/hfpbapr09p~2)** has just published its latest Bulletin. The Bulletin summarises some of the latest research on trade policy and health. In an article on trade agreements and alcohol consumption, for example, Donald Zeigler argues: "‘free’ trade agreements reduce trade barriers, increase competition, lower prices and promote  alcohol consumption." 

Latest research on donor financing for health
----------
In a just-published Discusiion Paper **"The Long and Tortured Road to Adequate, Sustained and Spending Domestic and Donor Financing for Health"**, for [International Civil Society Support](www.icssupport.org ) and Northeastern University School of Law, Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy, Professor Brook Baker argues:  "Civil society health and human rights activists must be prepared to fight for every penny and pound that they can get to increase resources for health" because "the fragmented architecture of donor assistance creates redundancies, gaps, and inefficiencies at the same time that it imposes excessive transaction costs on both developing country governments and implementers."

A new PPP is born
----------
In what has been a busy week in the creation of new global economic insitutions for health, the Gates Foundation is supporting a new public-private partnership - **Affordable Medicines Facility** - with $225m. The partnership "will reduce the price of effective malaria drugs so they can drive older, ineffective drugs out of the market" according to a press release on 17th April.

  EG4HEALTH IS MORE THAN WORDS - HERE'S HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED:

**Add your name to our [open letter](http://www.eg4health.org/chan.html)** to Dr Margaret Chan

**Join the group** – simply send an email to **info at eg4health.org** 

**Sign our [30 second supporter survey**](http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=O5yiYmzSrTWZ_2fCFv0_2fIDbQ_3d_3d) - we want to know how to help strengthen your collective voice through our campaigning and advocacy work

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