PHM-Exch> PRESS RELEASE: NGOs call on Member States to STOP the World Health Forum

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Patti Rundall <prundall at babymilkaction.org>


*PRESS RELEASE  16th May 2011*
*
*
*for online version with links see:
http://info.babymilkaction.org/pressrelease/pressrelease16may11

World Health Assembly, United Nations Geneva,

NGOs call on Member States to STOP the World Health Forum*

The International Baby Food Action Network and the People’s Health
Movement, two of the largest people’s networks on public health issues,  are
jointly opposing the report of the WHO Director General, in  the report“The
future of financing for WHO: World Health Organization: reforms for a
healthy future”.   The global networks consider that the new
proposal undermines the principles of democratic governance, and the
independence and effectiveness of WHO.  It increases the power of the
already disproportionately powerful for-profit sector. The Report from the
Director General was issued only on 5th May – and followed by an open-ended
development plan only on the Friday evening before the Assembly – which
starts today.

*“We find this proposal absolutely unacceptable, especially since WHO has
given Member States no time to discuss and consider the implications”* Dr
Arun Gupta, Regional Coordinator for IBFAN Asia

The DG is proposing the creation of a World Health Forum (WHF) as an
essential element of the global health governance system. The NGOs are
urging Member States (MS) to reject the draft resolution, for the following
three reasons:

1.   WHO is an intergovernmental organization, which has a constitutional
mandate to ensure the fundamental right of every human being without
distinction to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.
WHO must protect its independence, integrity in decision making and its
reputation. It must also guard against manipulation of its governing bodies
by private interest actors.  We believe this forum will undermine WHO’s
ability to fulfill its mandate. Paragraph 20 (ii) of the report A 64/4
illustrates this point. It states that the expected outcomes of the WHO
reform will “Improve health outcomes, with WHO meeting the expectations of
its Member States and partners”.  The reassurances given in paragraph 86
that “a multi-stakeholder forum […] will not usurp the decision making
prerogatives of WHO’s own governance” are not credible.  How can the WHF
meet the expectations of commercial actors without usurping the prerogatives
of WHO’s own governance?

2.   In paragraph 87 of the report A64/4, it is proposed that the
multi-stakeholder forum will “identify future priorities in global health”.
This is a reason for serious concern as it is the WHA’s responsibility to
set health priorities, benchmarks and standards which will effectively
protect health for all. Previous experience with multi-stakeholder
initiatives has shown that health priorities are distorted when they have to
be agreed by for-profit actors, whose duties and responsibilities
are ultimately to their shareholders and employees. IBFAN’s experience on
baby foods illustrates how the baby food industry systematically undermines
Member States’ efforts to regulate marketing in line with WHA’s resolutions.

3.   The WHF institutionalizes conflicts of interests as the norm within WHO
by extending the role of policy and decision shaping to for-profit actors
that have an interest in the outcome. WHF poses an unjustifiable risk, in
that it may compromise and distort international and national agreed public
health priorities and policies. This is ever more worrying in the absence of
a strong and clear WHO policy on conflicts of interests. Transparency,
currently promoted as the answer to the problem of conflicts of interests,
is an essential requirement but it is not a sufficient safeguard in itself.
It helps identify conflicts of interests, but does not deal with them.

The NGOs  conclude that the proposal fails to demonstrate any added value
over possible alternatives to address the issue of strengthening WHO’s role
in global health governance.

N.B. *This reform is being introduced under the name of “financing for WHO”,
however the report A64/4 hardly mentions finances. These are reflected only
in the point 4 of the Report A64/INF.DOC./5only in a form of a corporate
resource mobilization strategy.
*

          Report by the Director General. A64/4 (5 May 2011) and the
report A64/INF.DOC./5

For more information contact:
Patti Rundall prundall at babymilkaction.org  +44 7786 523493;
  Lida Lhotska  Lida.lhotska at gifa.org;
 Ina Verzivolli  ina.verzivolli at gifa.org    +41 789 565476
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