PHM-Exch> People's Health Movement: Final Cape Town Call to Action

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: PHM Global Secretariat <globalsecretariat at phmovement.org>


Cape Town Call to Action



*CLICK HERE<http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/Call%20to%20Action%20FINAL_0.pdf>
for
the full version of the CAPE TOWN CALL TO ACTION - Please spread wide and
far!*


Excerpts:


We reaffirm our commitment to the People’s Charter for Health and to the
Cuenca Declaration, which are the foundational documents to this Call to
Action.



                This Call to Action will guide our work until the Fourth
People’s Health Assembly.



                Our health has been devastated by neoliberal policies that
are the hallmark of present day capitalism. The global health crisis is a
consequence of the failure to address the social, political and
environmental determination of health. The current capitalist crisis has
several inter-related dimensions, among them: political, food, economic,
financial and ecological. Its roots lie in the

neoliberal model of globalisation.



                The response of national and international institutions, to
the current financial crisis, has been merely to ‘restore the confidence’
of the same institutions and financial markets that caused the crisis in
the first place. Governments have enacted an ‘austerity agenda’ – cutting
health and social spending - effectively deepening and reinforcing the very
neoliberal economic model the crisis had so discredited, and handing even
more power to finance capital.



                There is a need to redesign our political culture and our
institutions, both nationally and globally; to create relations based on
solidarity; and to put in place the mechanisms of accountability needed to
run the global political, economic and social structures in a manner that
is just, equitable and sustainable.



*Our Alternate Vision:*

   - ·         A reformed economic system that values every individual, not
   every dollar;
   - ·         Just, fair and democratic political and economic processes
   and institutions;
   - ·         Better and transformed global heath governance that is free
   from corporate influence and the influence of unaccountable private actors;
   - ·         Equitable Public Health Systems that are universal,
   integrated and comprehensive, as well as provide a platform for appropriate
   action on social determination of health.



*What is to be Done:*



No change will happen without the mobilization of the people through the
building of social and political power amongst people and communities. We
commit ourselves to building alliances with others who seek progressive and
transformative change.



We leave Cape Town determined to:

   - ·         set up new PHM circles
   - ·         energise, broaden and deepen the work of existing PHM
   country circles
   - ·         strengthen and develop the thematic circles of the PHM.



We leave Cape Town committed to:



   - creating and communicating alternative visions, analyses, discourses
   and evidence;
   - actively support and facilitate a range of campaigns.



We will continue and expand our global work around existing global
programmes – suitably redesigned wherever necessary, namely:

   - the Right to health campaign;
   - the International Peoples Health University;
   - the Global Health Watch;
   - the Democratising Global Health; WHO Watch and Supporting the
   Restitution of the WHO.



We further commit ourselves to expand our global Right to Health campaign,
a campaign that will be globally co-ordinated, but locally owned and
driven.

--
Global Secretariat
People's Health Movement (PHM)
Email: globalsecretariat at phmovement.org
Web: www.phmovement.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20121004/e262d0b1/attachment.html>