From cschuftan at phmovement.org Mon Oct 22 09:38:25 2018 From: cschuftan at phmovement.org (Claudio Schuftan) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 09:38:25 -0700 Subject: PHM-Exch> Declaration of the Global Campaign on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights In-Reply-To: <900f174f-2c61-24d5-cd0a-33f0cd2e6278@tni.org> References: <900f174f-2c61-24d5-cd0a-33f0cd2e6278@tni.org> Message-ID: From: Sol Trumbo Vila Declaration of the Global Campaign for the closing of the 4th session of the OEIWG on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights Here you can find the final declaration of the Global Campaign to reclaim peoples? sovereignty, dismantle corporate power and stop impunity (Global Campaign) for the closing of the 4th session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (OEIWG). It captures the key elements that the Global Campaign understands are need it for the success of the work of the OEIWG and for the elaboration of a meaningful instrument that allows those affected to have access to effective and tangible justice. https://www.stopcorporateimpunity.org/declaration-of-the-global-campaign-for-the-closing-of-the-4th-session-of-the-oeiwg-on-transnational-corporations-and-human-rights/ Please disseminate it and include it in your communications work. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschuftan at phmovement.org Mon Oct 22 09:30:57 2018 From: cschuftan at phmovement.org (Claudio Schuftan) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 09:30:57 -0700 Subject: PHM-Exch> DRAFT Alternative Civil Society Astana Statement on Primary Health Care Message-ID: *DRAFT Alternative Civil Society Astana Statement on Primary Health Care* *(Please note, after some consultation it was agreed to call this a ?statement? rather than a ?declaration?. The statement is a re-affirmation of the Alma Ata declaration, which to PHM and others remains the ultimate declaration on primary health care; the principles are clear and remain relevant. This statement can be seen as a re-commitment to the Alma Ata declaration of 1978: a number of points have been drawn out from the Alma Ata Declaration; with a few additions relevant to the current context and challenges. Although the title has changed, the content remains the same)* We, members of public interest civil society organisations and social movements, some of whom are participants at the Global Conference on Primary Health Care, re-affirm our commitment to primary health care (PHC) in pursuit of health and well-being for all, aiming to achieve equity in health outcomes. We envision: Societies and environments that prioritize, protect and promote people's health; Health care that is accessible, affordable and acceptable for everyone, everywhere; Health care of good quality that treats people with respect and dignity; Health systems over which communities are able to exert control Although these objectives are shared in the official Astana Declaration (version 16th August 2018) it is concerning that the latter frames PHC primarily as a foundation of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). PHC, is broader and indeed subsumes UHC, which is, in many countries, being implemented by private health insurance companies and aggravating health inequities. Additionally, the official declaration (version 16th August) is insufficiently clear that governments have primary responsibility for health service delivery and for ensuring that social determinants maximise health and equity. While the official declaration recognises ?that people in all parts of the world have unaddressed health needs and inequities persist?, it does not acknowledge that health gains in some places are being reversed. These issues and their fundamental economic and political causes which are responsible for widening inequalities worldwide need to be more explicitly stated. These are some of the reasons why People?s Health Movement and its constituency feel it necessary to elaborate an Alternative Statement. Attaining the highest possible standard of health is a fundamental right of every human being, as stated in the Constitution of the World Health Organization. Forty years ago, in 1978, world leaders made the historical commitment to achieve health for all through Primary Health Care in the Declaration of Alma-Ata. We, the undersigned, express the need for urgent action by all international agencies and governments, all health and development workers, and the world community to protect and promote the health of all the people of the world, hereby makes the following Statement: 1. We the undersigned strongly reaffirm that health, which is a state of complete physical, mental, social, cultural, and ecological wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, is a fundamental human right and that the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important world-wide social goal whose realization is the responsibility of governments and requires the action of many other social and economic sectors in addition to the health sector. People?s health depends on working and living conditions that promote flourishing lives and a healthy and protected natural environment. 2. The existing extreme and growing inequality in the economic and health status of the people both across the world, as well as between and within countries is politically, socially, economically and ethically unacceptable and a source of conflict and environmental destruction and is, therefore, of common concern to all countries. 3. Equitable economic and social development, will require rejection of the currently dominant neo-liberal paradigm and establishment of a sustainable and equitable economic order globally and nationally. Amongst other interventions regulation of financial flows and of tax havens and evasion are urgently needed. These changes, along with recognition and action to address inequities due to gender, caste, race, disability and sexual orientation, are of basic importance to the fullest attainment of health for all and to the reduction of the gap in the health status within and between countries. The promotion and protection of the health and wellbeing of all people will enable sustainable and equitable forms of social and economic development that will contribute to world peace and environmental protection. 4. The people should be afforded every opportunity to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care. This participation should respect age, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status and use digital technologies where appropriate. 5. Governments have a responsibility to realise the right to health of their people along with other rights specified in the United Nations (UN) Declaration of Human Rights. A main social target of governments, international organizations and the whole world community in the coming decades should be the attainment by all peoples of the world of a level of health that will permit them to lead socially and economically flourishing lives. The United Nations SDGs could be important in reaching this target if they are underpinned by the establishment of a global and national equitable and sustainable economic order. Primary health care is the key to attaining Health for All as part of development in the spirit of social justice, and which is eminently possible given current knowledge, technology and resources. 6. Effective and accountable global governance for health is required to realise PHC. This should include means of effective taxation to ensure that all individuals and corporations pay their fair share of taxes to enable the funding of health and other services beneficial to health; 7. By 2018 the survival of life on earth is threatened by accelerating climate change. Thus part of the PHC approach should be to endorse the Earth Charter (2000) which proposed we are all citizens of our planet as well as our nation states. It recognised the interconnections between living in harmony with and protecting the natural environment and other species, and living in peace, with equity and social justice within human societies; all core parallel principles shared with the Primary Health Care movement. 8. Primary health care is essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation in the spirit of self-determination. It forms an integral part both of the country's health system, of which it is the central function and main focus, and of the overall social and economic development of the community. It gives particular emphasis to the household and community levels and the first level of care bringing comprehensive health care as close as possible to where people live and work, and is fully integrated with other levels of care. 9. Primary health care: I. reflects and evolves from the economic conditions and sociocultural and political characteristics of a country and its communities and is based on the application of relevant social, biomedical and health systems research and public health experience; II. addresses the main health problems in the community, providing promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative services accordingly; III. includes at least: health education concerning prevailing health problems and the methods of preventing and controlling them; promotion of a healthy food supply and proper nutrition; an adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation; reproductive and sexual health care, including maternal health care, contraception, abortion; prevention and health care for gender based violence; child health care,; immunization against the major infectious diseases; prevention and control of locally endemic diseases and non-communicable disease including mental illness; appropriate treatment of common diseases and injuries; healthcare needs of the disabled and provision of essential drugs; IV. involves, in addition to the health sector, all related sectors and aspects of national and community development, in particular agriculture, trade, food, industry, education, housing, public infrastructure, communications and information technology and other sectors; and demands the coordinated efforts of all those sectors; V. requires and promotes maximum community and individual self-reliance and participation in the planning, organization, operation and control of primary health care, making fullest use of local, national and other available resources; and to this end develops through appropriate training the ability of communities to participate; VI. should be sustained by integrated, functional and mutually supportive referral systems, leading to the progressive improvement of comprehensive health care for all, and giving priority to those most in need; VII. relies, at local and referral levels, on health workers, including physicians, nurses, midwives, mid-level workers and community health workers as applicable, as well as traditional practitioners as needed, suitably trained socially and technically to work as a health team and to respond to the expressed health needs of the community. All governments should formulate national policies, strategies and plans of action to strengthen and sustain primary health care as part of a comprehensive national health system and in coordination with other sectors. To this end, it will be necessary to exercise political will, to mobilize the country's resources and to use available external resources rationally. 10. While technology has brought health benefits, care must be taken to ensure that technology is used with intelligence so that: I. New bio-technology and artificial intelligence should be assessed in terms of its potential to do harm as well as good and in terms of its contribution to overall population health and equity and be regulated as necessary II. Over-servicing, especially in the private sector, requires regulation. One aspect of this which is contributing to the crisis of anti-microbial resistance is irrational and overuse of antibiotics in both the health and industrial farming sectors III. The use of digital technologies has the potential to increase access and quality of care but strategies must be informed by an awareness of the digital gradient, which mirrors socio-economic inequities. Special measures need to be taken to flatten this gradient. 11. An essential component of primary health care is universal health coverage which should be universalist, based on social solidarity and built on a unified public funded system, with most service provision through public institutions. 12. Since the protection and attainment of health by people in any one country directly concerns and benefits every other country, development assistance, including donor programs, must be accountable to and strengthen national public health systems and address the social, environmental and ecological determinants of health. 13. The training of health personnel requires to be more strongly oriented to primary health care, and employment conditions need to ensure fair and safe working situations. Distribution of health personnel is grossly inequitable and reflects the inverse care law. Global and national policies should institute policies to mitigate the brain drain from low and middle income countries to high income countries by inter alia increasing production of their own health workers and compensating sending countries for their losses in training costs. 14. Health gains from the implementation of an effective primary health care system can be easily undermined by the commercial determinants of health including promotion and trade of health harming commodities (e.g. food, alcohol, tobacco) and environmentally damaging extractive industries. Global and national policies, including effective regulation, are needed to prevent their adverse impacts. 15. An acceptable level of health for all the people of the world can be attained through a fuller and better use of the world's resources, a considerable part of which is now spent on armaments and military conflicts. A genuine policy of independence, peace, and disarmament could and should release additional resources that could well be devoted to peaceful aims and in particular to the acceleration of social and economic development of which primary health care, as an essential part, should be allotted its proper share. We the undersigned representing a wide range of public civil society organisations and social movement call on the Global Conference on Primary Health Care to undertake urgent and effective national and global action to develop and implement primary health care throughout the world and particularly in low and middle income countries in a spirit of technical cooperation and in keeping with a sustainable and equitable economic order. It urges governments, WHO, and other international organizations, as well as multilateral and bilateral agencies, nongovernmental organizations, funding agencies, all health workers and the whole world community to support national and international commitment to primary health care and to channel increased technical and financial support to it, particularly in low and middle income countries. We call on all the aforementioned to collaborate in strengthening, developing, funding and maintaining public health systems based on primary health care in accordance with the spirit and content of this Statement. *Please endorse above statement through this link: * *https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5Y6GWCL* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschuftan at phmovement.org Mon Oct 22 11:04:09 2018 From: cschuftan at phmovement.org (Claudio Schuftan) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 11:04:09 -0700 Subject: PHM-Exch> [PHM] a bit of history (5) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *CAPE TOWN CALL TO ACTION* *2012 * *A. Preamble * After two years of participatory engagement and planning we, the People?s Health Movement, have gathered 800 strong from 90 countries representing the voices of tens of thousands more in our movement across every continent in the world. In Cape Town we have: ? strengthened and deepened our resolve and solidarity ? expressed our outrage at the continuing global health crises embedded in a myriad of structural and socio-political inequities; ? developed principles for an alternative economic, political and social order[s]; and ? re-committed ourselves to work towards the world we have envisioned. 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. *B. The Global Health Crisis * Health in the world has been devastated by neoliberal policies that are the hallmark of present day capitalism, and increasingly so by the global crisis of capitalism. The current crisis underpins the growing global health inequalities within and between countries. *The health crisis comes with growing health inequalities * The global health crisis is a consequence of the failure to address the social, political and environmental determination of health, resulting in an erosion of food sovereignty, in higher levels of poverty, as wellas in a lack of fair and equitable access to water, housing, sanitation, education, employment and universal and comprehensive health services. Ill-health and disability are being perpetuated by the aggressive marketing of unhealthy products such as tobacco, alcohol, junk food and beverages; by the pollution of our air, our land and water sources; by the colonization of lands and other natural resources ; and by the forced eviction of vast numbers of people [the population], including indigenous peoples, from their lands and homes. We have witnessed how: ? small farmers are losing their livelihoods as a result of the dumping of subsidised foodstuffs from the agriculture of industrialised in countries in the North; ? indigenous people are being herded off their land by the extractive mining industry and the struggles by communities that are affected are being criminalized; ? the health of workers is jeopardised by the absence of safety [and] regulations at the workplace, as well as by environmental degradation and pollution; ? poor people in dense urban settings are being driven to depend on junk food, available more cheaply than nutritious natural food; ? the relegation of women's health to only encompass maternity and family planning, on the one hand, and the concerted attack on women's reproductive and sexual rights, on the other, violates women's autonomy, personhood, dignity and human rights; ? women and young people are being denied the right to sexual and reproductive health services; ? migrants and displaced people suffer from xenophobia and from a lack of access to healthcare; and ? racism - social, institutional and structural - coupled with religious intolerance, disrupts the lives of people and prevents them from living a dignified life free of fear; ? children?s rights are being undermined by denying them the conditions in which they can thrive and flourish. Millions of families, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, are being denied access to comprehensive primary health care and universal health services by way of their poverty and the other many institutional barriers they face. In high income countries, there has been a continuing campaign to reduce funding and support for the public sector and to replace public services with those provided by the market. Moving health care out of the public domain makes it easier for large capitalist enterprises (big pharma, big insurance and biotechnology corporations) to increase sales and profits, working in close partnership with those who profitfrom the delivery of health services. The commodification of health has been intensified by the persitence and thriving of the reductionistic, industrial, biomedical model. The current global trade and investment regime (driven by multilateral, plurilateraland bilateral trade and investments agreements) is seriously undermining universal social entitlements and rights, as well as the power[s] of states to regulate the activities? of corporations and of private financial institutions. Access to affordable medicines has been compromised worldwide as a result of the WTO-TRIPS Agreement and the continuing pressure on developing countries to adopt TRIPS-plus standards through trade agreements and bogus anti-counterfeiting initiatives. While we welcome the recent [up]surge in interest in the concept of universal health coverage, we oppose the idea that this be achieved through the promotion of a minimalistic insurance model that would offer 'basic packages of care' and would operate within a market-based system of healthcare. We oppose attempts to use this approach to dismantle or undermine the public health system to promote corporate interests in health care delivery. Universal health coverage must be achieved through organized and accountable systems of high quality public provision of comprehensive primary health care and of a working referral system governed by need of care. The global health crisis also reflects a crisis in effective and accountable global health governance. The dimensions of this crisis include: ? The undermining of the World Health Organisation ? The power exerted by a fragmented and uncoordinated health aid industry ? The undue influence of unaccountable private corporations and foundations over health policy and programming ? An approach that seeks to remedy the problems of structural inequality through a ?charity? model rather than through systemic and structural transformations. *The crises of capitalism * *Genesis of the current crisis* The current capitalist crisis has several inter-related dimensions, among them: political, food, economic, financial and ecological dimensions. Its roots lie in the neoliberal model of globalisation that emerged in the 1970s as a response to declining rates of profit and wealth accumulation in developed capitalist economies. It also included privatisation and commercialisation of public services, such as in health, education, water and energy supply and public transport. The model, in its endeavour to create a global market for goods and services, promotes the integration of global economies and the expansion and liberalization of global trade. This model was and is forced upon developing countries through structural adjustment programmes, trade agreements and investment treaties, effectively legally locking many developing countries into the neoliberal paradigm which is highly inequitable and, at best, extremely inefficient in reducing poverty and meeting people?s livelihood needs. Meanwhile, the current development and aid industry merely sustains and reproduces existing social and political inequalities. Neoliberal globalisation has resulted in an immense concentration of power among a wealthy and corporate elite who actively undermine democracy and social justice through their influence and through the corruption of national governments and international institutions. The present political crisis is rooted in the lack of accountable, transparent and democratic decision-making. Even in countries with progressive governments, spaces for democratic participation are closing [down] and protest is being criminalized. The war industry, having blighted lives in many parts of the world, is deeply embedded within the capitalist economic system. Imperialism has increased the use of its military might to maintain and expand its control over the political architecture, as well as the resources of the planet. 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. *The crisis today and its manifestations* The current financial crisis is rooted in the de-regulation of banks that were allowed to become ?too big to fail', to increase their ratio of loans (debts) to assets, and to speculate heavily on currencies, on derivatives and on mortgages. The response of national and international institutions has been merely to ?restore the confidence? of the same institutions and financial markets that caused the crisis in the first place. Governments have moved quickly to bail out the failing banks and have enacted a host of ?austerity agendas? the world over effectively cutting health and social spending thus deepening and reinforcing the very neoliberal economic model the crisis has so discredited, and handing even more power to the managers of finance capital. The ecological crisis is also a part of the capitalist crisis and mirrors the rise in global inequalities as characterized by the obscene over-consumption of a small minority that is overstretching the capacity of the planet[,] while a large majority are denied even their basic needs. The resources of this planet are being privatized and plundered in ways that are damaging and lethal for future generations. Public stewardship of our scarce resources is the only solution to the equitable protection of the planet. Rich nations are passing on the burden of the ecological crisis onto poor nations through various mechanisms, including through the shifting of negative externalities onto poor peoples. Coercive population control policies enacted in the name of climate protection are now violating women?s rights. Many of the effects of overproduction and overconsumption and of climate change are felt by the world's indigenous communities, small-scale peasant farmers, poor people and the working classes. Although the planet is capable of providing for the needs of all its people, the current system of production and consumption only undermines the natural basis of life through a need for constant growth[, while] leaving billions of people in poverty. The annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting under the UN Convention on Climate Change has failed miserably to ensure the rapid reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases. Under the domination of predatory transnational corporations the negotiations have sought to impose false solutions such as carbon trading, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and other market/financial incentives to safeguard continued profit margins and the continuity of economic growth. The food crisis as evidenced by the existence of a billion hungry people and two billion overweight or obese people is a manifestation of a much larger and more pervasive malaise caused by the loss of food sovereignty and of control by communities and poor nations over the use of their own resources. The food system is dominated by transnational corporations (big agribusiness and big food and beverage corporations). This has resulted in, among other things, mono-cropping and the replacement of food crops with crops for bio-fuels; a huge increase in the speculative trading of food grains; unfair trade agreements; and oligopolies in the food retail sector. The food crisis is now deepening by ?land grabs?, a new form of colonialism in which transnational corporations and sovereign wealth funds are acquiring large tracts of arable land in poor and often poorly governed countries ? displacing domestic food production systems, as well as rural peoples from their lands. Meanwhile, hunger and malnutrition is being converted into a new market for processed ready-to-use foods (RUTF) and nutriceuticals, often assisted by the aid industry and multilateral organisations. *C. Our Alternative Vision * PHM seeks a better world and offers a critical alternative. We believe that transformative and radical change is needed and can indeed be achieved. Our vision consists of a number of inter-related dimensions: ? A reformed economic system ? Just, fair and democratic political and economic processes and institutions ? A better global heath governance ? Equitable [and] Public Health Systems. *Reformed economic system* We need an economic system that values every individual, not every dollar. The primary objective must be to maximise benefits to people ? their health, their wellbeing, and their quality of life ? not total output or income. It should be based on collaboration[,] within and between communities and nations, not on competition, and should seek to minimise the use of environmental resources and capacity? while fostering sustainable livelihoods for all. It will be socially directed rather than market driven. Such an economic system will: ? encourage adequate, appropriate, equitable and sustainable consumption, with the least ecological and human impact, reflecting a commitment to future generations and harmony with the planet. ? replace existing global and regional trade and financial agreements with those that will eradicate food insecurity and malnutrition and will foster food sovereignty; ? be rooted in and have obligations towards local communities while being globally responsible; ? establish and develop worker controlled enterprises; ? create sustainable, dignified work opportunities that meet the basic needs of all, ? build solidarity links between people; ? reverse the land grabs that are ongoing; and ? be rooted in the effective measurement of societal progress on the basis of health, social and environmental indicators. *Just. fair and democratic political and economic processes and institutions * We need a new system of global governance, including governance in the different international trade and financial systems, that : ? places health, well-being, human rights and environmental sustainability at the centre of all policies, ? ensures genuine equality of influence at the heart of all decision-making, ? promotes democracy, accountability and transparency at all levels. We need news systems of national governance: ? in which electoral democracy is not captured by capital or undue private interests influence; ? where forms of participatory democracy are integral to structures of governance; ? where people have adequate constitutional rights and protections, including the right to protest against conditions or practices that create social exclusion and oppression. We seek a world in which governments will: ? work multi-laterally to reach peaceful resolutions to international conflicts ? refrain from imposition of their own policies and interests on other sovereign nations, whether through force or by economic pressures; ? be held accountable for the full implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Covenants on Political, Civll and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. A new system of global and national governance will include regulatory structures that, among other, ensure: ? fair and progressive taxation regimes within and between countries that will enable a transformative and equitable redistribution of resources and power; ? closure of tax havens and democratic reform and regulation of the international banking system; ? fair trade arrangements and agreements; ? a new regime for research and development that does not seek to monopolise knowledge in a few hands, prioritises the genuine needs of the largest numbers of people and sees local communities as equal partners in applied research endeavours. ? a new regime for the production, management and distribution of knowledge and technology that prevents their private appropriation and promotes an open system of knowledge sharing. *A better global heath governance* We seek a more coherent and accountable system of global health governance that is free from corporate influence and the influence of unaccountable private actors. We seek a radical rationalization of the multiple Global Health Partnerships and funds. We seek new and more accountable mechanisms for the management and allocation of global public finance, working with and through UN institutions. The World Health Organisation must: ? follow its constitutional mandate to act as the directing and coordinating authority for international and global health ? be fully and adequately funded by assessed and untied contributions from sovereign nations/member States ? be de-facto accountable to countries/States? and the people of the world *Equitable [and] Public Health Systems * Health systems must progressively become: ? Universal, integrated and comprehensive, as well as provide a platform for appropriate action as regards the social determinantion of health; ? supported by a guarantee of the right to health in the national constitution; ? based on accessible, effective, gender-sensitive, youth-friendly and free comprehensive primary health care, accountable and appropriate to people?s health needs; accessible to all, with no discrimination on the basis of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, economic status, sexual identity, disability, cultural knowledge, language or any other basis; ? welcoming of alternate cultural understandings of health and systems of healing, and not based solely on biomedical concepts of health and illness; ? properly and adequately publicly financed with public expenditure representing the major share of total health expenditures, as well as capable of protecting the population against the rising costs of health care; ? be [cap]able to retain local health workers within the national health system rather than losing them to international migration; ? built around an integrated network of public facilities responsible for providing comprehensive care, based on the principles of universality and equality; ? able to strictly regulate commercial health care providers (where present) within an ethical framework; ? participatory and responsive to peoples? needs through social participation in the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies; ? compatible with sound ecological principles and practices. PHM will also work towards developing frameworks of analysis using its global community of public health practitioners, academicians and activists who can work on innovative and creative design solutions that will ensure more effective, efficient and equitable public health systems. *D. What is to be Done? * This Call to Action was developed at and is directed to all delegates of the Third Peoples Health Assembly (Cape Town July 2012) and their fellow health and social activists from across the world. *D.1. Power to the People: Building the Movement * No change will happen without the mobilization of people. Power is not given to the people; it has to be exacted from the political, corporate and financial elites; Our members will hold [our] public institutions accountable and will make them work in ways that are transparent and truly representative and that serve the public interest and social justice. All this requires the building of social and political power among[st] people and communities. The Third PHA celebrated the successes of the growing People?s Health Movement, especially the development of new country circles in Africa. While we are a movement focused on health and are built mainly around health activism, we share many goals with other social movements that also seek a more just and sustainable world. In order to diminish the power of financial capital, democratize governance and defeat neoliberal economic policies, we simply need to build a more effective and broad-based social movement. To this end, we commit ourselves to building alliances with others who seek progressive and transformative change. PHM is in a unique position to build alliances across existing movements, including those of informal and formal sector workers, the landless, indigenous peoples, women and youth. We will build solidarity with those struggling against big dams, nuclear power plants, illegal mining, hazardous working conditions and others. We will work with the environmental justice movement. We will seek [to encourage] greater trans-disciplinary engagement with, among others, progressive economists, environmental scientists, lawyers, urban planners and political-social scientists. We leave/ left Cape Town determined to: ? set up new PHM circles ? energise, broaden and deepen the work of existing PHM country circles ? strengthen and develop the issue-based (thematic) circles of the PHM. We leave/ left Cape Town with a new and reinvigorated and rejuvenated Global Steering Council that, among other, will improve communications within the movement, facilitate effective coordination across the movement and ensure organic linkages with regional and country circles. This will include facilitating the recruitment and support of PHM outreach workers to assist the development of [the] PHM in countries and regions. We will strive to foster and develop community-based struggles, campaigns and advocacy initiatives from local to national and global levels on multiple fronts, as well as develop the health movement in the coming phase. *D.2. Creating and communicating alternative visions, analyses, discourses based on the evidence presented above * We recognise that the neoliberal orthodoxy and the vested interests of the rich and powerful are heavily represented in the mainstream media. We recognise the power of the mainstream media and of corporate propaganda in shaping prevailing views and attitudes and sustaining the belief that there is no alternative to the current political and economic system. We recognize that many scientific journals and institutions of education and knowledge generation act to legitimize and sustain the current system and paradigm. We recognise the lack of investment in research, in monitoring and surveillance that will serve the interests of the poor and promote the global social justice and equity agenda PHM stands for. To this end we leave/left Cape Town and commit/ed to: ? communicating the alternative vision[s] advanced in this CTA, together with its analyses and discourses to the people, using a wide variety of media and communication techniques, especially those that engage people creatively; ? using the Global Health Watch as an instrument to communicate our alternative progressive analysis of the state of global health and our critiques of the current institutional framework for global health. We will work to improve the dissemination of the [contents of] periodic GHWs both in English and in other languages using alternative media so as to reach a greater diversity of audiences. We will [create and] establish and maintain local and national health watches; ? expanding and extending the reach of the International Peoples Health University (IPHU) as a means of education, empowerment and mobilisation of young PHM cadres; ? expanding processes such as community-based monitoring to ensure health system accountability and community oriented action research. *D.3. Organising and planning to make change happen * To make change happen, movement building and alternative analyses must be translated into concrete campaigns and programmes of action. Actions will need to be planned and organised at the local and national levels. However, as a global movement, we will seek to actively support and facilitate a range of campaigns, by: ? providing information and facilitating the sharing of information on the international context that affects country experiences; ? providing campaigning materials on issues of international priority; ? liaising and coordinating with organisations in different countries working on related issues; ? providing multiple fora for the sharing of experiences; ? supporting campaigns at the international level giving e wide publicity; ? [facilitating advocacy regarding] actively mobilizing to oppose health damaging policies and actions of international organizations and of Northern governments. To enable us to fulfil this role effectively, we will intensify our fundraising efforts, in order to strengthen the movement through: - Increasing the capacity of young PHM activists through supporting more IPHUs; - strengthening regions and countries through the recruitment of regional outreach coordinators; - Increasing regional support to build the movement at the local and country level; - Strengthening the global secretariat; - Increasing the resources available for information, media and advocacy activities at the international and local levels. 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschuftan at phmovement.org Mon Oct 22 10:52:15 2018 From: cschuftan at phmovement.org (Claudio Schuftan) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 10:52:15 -0700 Subject: PHM-Exch> IV ASAMBLEA MUNDIAL. SALUD DE LOS PUEBLOS. espaniol In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: From: Jorge Quishpe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschuftan at phmovement.org Mon Oct 22 09:38:25 2018 From: cschuftan at phmovement.org (Claudio Schuftan) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 09:38:25 -0700 Subject: PHM-Exch> Declaration of the Global Campaign on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights In-Reply-To: <900f174f-2c61-24d5-cd0a-33f0cd2e6278@tni.org> References: <900f174f-2c61-24d5-cd0a-33f0cd2e6278@tni.org> Message-ID: From: Sol Trumbo Vila Declaration of the Global Campaign for the closing of the 4th session of the OEIWG on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights Here you can find the final declaration of the Global Campaign to reclaim peoples? sovereignty, dismantle corporate power and stop impunity (Global Campaign) for the closing of the 4th session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (OEIWG). It captures the key elements that the Global Campaign understands are need it for the success of the work of the OEIWG and for the elaboration of a meaningful instrument that allows those affected to have access to effective and tangible justice. https://www.stopcorporateimpunity.org/declaration-of-the-global-campaign-for-the-closing-of-the-4th-session-of-the-oeiwg-on-transnational-corporations-and-human-rights/ Please disseminate it and include it in your communications work. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschuftan at phmovement.org Mon Oct 22 09:30:57 2018 From: cschuftan at phmovement.org (Claudio Schuftan) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 09:30:57 -0700 Subject: PHM-Exch> DRAFT Alternative Civil Society Astana Statement on Primary Health Care Message-ID: *DRAFT Alternative Civil Society Astana Statement on Primary Health Care* *(Please note, after some consultation it was agreed to call this a ?statement? rather than a ?declaration?. The statement is a re-affirmation of the Alma Ata declaration, which to PHM and others remains the ultimate declaration on primary health care; the principles are clear and remain relevant. This statement can be seen as a re-commitment to the Alma Ata declaration of 1978: a number of points have been drawn out from the Alma Ata Declaration; with a few additions relevant to the current context and challenges. Although the title has changed, the content remains the same)* We, members of public interest civil society organisations and social movements, some of whom are participants at the Global Conference on Primary Health Care, re-affirm our commitment to primary health care (PHC) in pursuit of health and well-being for all, aiming to achieve equity in health outcomes. We envision: Societies and environments that prioritize, protect and promote people's health; Health care that is accessible, affordable and acceptable for everyone, everywhere; Health care of good quality that treats people with respect and dignity; Health systems over which communities are able to exert control Although these objectives are shared in the official Astana Declaration (version 16th August 2018) it is concerning that the latter frames PHC primarily as a foundation of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). PHC, is broader and indeed subsumes UHC, which is, in many countries, being implemented by private health insurance companies and aggravating health inequities. Additionally, the official declaration (version 16th August) is insufficiently clear that governments have primary responsibility for health service delivery and for ensuring that social determinants maximise health and equity. While the official declaration recognises ?that people in all parts of the world have unaddressed health needs and inequities persist?, it does not acknowledge that health gains in some places are being reversed. These issues and their fundamental economic and political causes which are responsible for widening inequalities worldwide need to be more explicitly stated. These are some of the reasons why People?s Health Movement and its constituency feel it necessary to elaborate an Alternative Statement. Attaining the highest possible standard of health is a fundamental right of every human being, as stated in the Constitution of the World Health Organization. Forty years ago, in 1978, world leaders made the historical commitment to achieve health for all through Primary Health Care in the Declaration of Alma-Ata. We, the undersigned, express the need for urgent action by all international agencies and governments, all health and development workers, and the world community to protect and promote the health of all the people of the world, hereby makes the following Statement: 1. We the undersigned strongly reaffirm that health, which is a state of complete physical, mental, social, cultural, and ecological wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, is a fundamental human right and that the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important world-wide social goal whose realization is the responsibility of governments and requires the action of many other social and economic sectors in addition to the health sector. People?s health depends on working and living conditions that promote flourishing lives and a healthy and protected natural environment. 2. The existing extreme and growing inequality in the economic and health status of the people both across the world, as well as between and within countries is politically, socially, economically and ethically unacceptable and a source of conflict and environmental destruction and is, therefore, of common concern to all countries. 3. Equitable economic and social development, will require rejection of the currently dominant neo-liberal paradigm and establishment of a sustainable and equitable economic order globally and nationally. Amongst other interventions regulation of financial flows and of tax havens and evasion are urgently needed. These changes, along with recognition and action to address inequities due to gender, caste, race, disability and sexual orientation, are of basic importance to the fullest attainment of health for all and to the reduction of the gap in the health status within and between countries. The promotion and protection of the health and wellbeing of all people will enable sustainable and equitable forms of social and economic development that will contribute to world peace and environmental protection. 4. The people should be afforded every opportunity to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care. This participation should respect age, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status and use digital technologies where appropriate. 5. Governments have a responsibility to realise the right to health of their people along with other rights specified in the United Nations (UN) Declaration of Human Rights. A main social target of governments, international organizations and the whole world community in the coming decades should be the attainment by all peoples of the world of a level of health that will permit them to lead socially and economically flourishing lives. The United Nations SDGs could be important in reaching this target if they are underpinned by the establishment of a global and national equitable and sustainable economic order. Primary health care is the key to attaining Health for All as part of development in the spirit of social justice, and which is eminently possible given current knowledge, technology and resources. 6. Effective and accountable global governance for health is required to realise PHC. This should include means of effective taxation to ensure that all individuals and corporations pay their fair share of taxes to enable the funding of health and other services beneficial to health; 7. By 2018 the survival of life on earth is threatened by accelerating climate change. Thus part of the PHC approach should be to endorse the Earth Charter (2000) which proposed we are all citizens of our planet as well as our nation states. It recognised the interconnections between living in harmony with and protecting the natural environment and other species, and living in peace, with equity and social justice within human societies; all core parallel principles shared with the Primary Health Care movement. 8. Primary health care is essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation in the spirit of self-determination. It forms an integral part both of the country's health system, of which it is the central function and main focus, and of the overall social and economic development of the community. It gives particular emphasis to the household and community levels and the first level of care bringing comprehensive health care as close as possible to where people live and work, and is fully integrated with other levels of care. 9. Primary health care: I. reflects and evolves from the economic conditions and sociocultural and political characteristics of a country and its communities and is based on the application of relevant social, biomedical and health systems research and public health experience; II. addresses the main health problems in the community, providing promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative services accordingly; III. includes at least: health education concerning prevailing health problems and the methods of preventing and controlling them; promotion of a healthy food supply and proper nutrition; an adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation; reproductive and sexual health care, including maternal health care, contraception, abortion; prevention and health care for gender based violence; child health care,; immunization against the major infectious diseases; prevention and control of locally endemic diseases and non-communicable disease including mental illness; appropriate treatment of common diseases and injuries; healthcare needs of the disabled and provision of essential drugs; IV. involves, in addition to the health sector, all related sectors and aspects of national and community development, in particular agriculture, trade, food, industry, education, housing, public infrastructure, communications and information technology and other sectors; and demands the coordinated efforts of all those sectors; V. requires and promotes maximum community and individual self-reliance and participation in the planning, organization, operation and control of primary health care, making fullest use of local, national and other available resources; and to this end develops through appropriate training the ability of communities to participate; VI. should be sustained by integrated, functional and mutually supportive referral systems, leading to the progressive improvement of comprehensive health care for all, and giving priority to those most in need; VII. relies, at local and referral levels, on health workers, including physicians, nurses, midwives, mid-level workers and community health workers as applicable, as well as traditional practitioners as needed, suitably trained socially and technically to work as a health team and to respond to the expressed health needs of the community. All governments should formulate national policies, strategies and plans of action to strengthen and sustain primary health care as part of a comprehensive national health system and in coordination with other sectors. To this end, it will be necessary to exercise political will, to mobilize the country's resources and to use available external resources rationally. 10. While technology has brought health benefits, care must be taken to ensure that technology is used with intelligence so that: I. New bio-technology and artificial intelligence should be assessed in terms of its potential to do harm as well as good and in terms of its contribution to overall population health and equity and be regulated as necessary II. Over-servicing, especially in the private sector, requires regulation. One aspect of this which is contributing to the crisis of anti-microbial resistance is irrational and overuse of antibiotics in both the health and industrial farming sectors III. The use of digital technologies has the potential to increase access and quality of care but strategies must be informed by an awareness of the digital gradient, which mirrors socio-economic inequities. Special measures need to be taken to flatten this gradient. 11. An essential component of primary health care is universal health coverage which should be universalist, based on social solidarity and built on a unified public funded system, with most service provision through public institutions. 12. Since the protection and attainment of health by people in any one country directly concerns and benefits every other country, development assistance, including donor programs, must be accountable to and strengthen national public health systems and address the social, environmental and ecological determinants of health. 13. The training of health personnel requires to be more strongly oriented to primary health care, and employment conditions need to ensure fair and safe working situations. Distribution of health personnel is grossly inequitable and reflects the inverse care law. Global and national policies should institute policies to mitigate the brain drain from low and middle income countries to high income countries by inter alia increasing production of their own health workers and compensating sending countries for their losses in training costs. 14. Health gains from the implementation of an effective primary health care system can be easily undermined by the commercial determinants of health including promotion and trade of health harming commodities (e.g. food, alcohol, tobacco) and environmentally damaging extractive industries. Global and national policies, including effective regulation, are needed to prevent their adverse impacts. 15. An acceptable level of health for all the people of the world can be attained through a fuller and better use of the world's resources, a considerable part of which is now spent on armaments and military conflicts. A genuine policy of independence, peace, and disarmament could and should release additional resources that could well be devoted to peaceful aims and in particular to the acceleration of social and economic development of which primary health care, as an essential part, should be allotted its proper share. We the undersigned representing a wide range of public civil society organisations and social movement call on the Global Conference on Primary Health Care to undertake urgent and effective national and global action to develop and implement primary health care throughout the world and particularly in low and middle income countries in a spirit of technical cooperation and in keeping with a sustainable and equitable economic order. It urges governments, WHO, and other international organizations, as well as multilateral and bilateral agencies, nongovernmental organizations, funding agencies, all health workers and the whole world community to support national and international commitment to primary health care and to channel increased technical and financial support to it, particularly in low and middle income countries. We call on all the aforementioned to collaborate in strengthening, developing, funding and maintaining public health systems based on primary health care in accordance with the spirit and content of this Statement. *Please endorse above statement through this link: * *https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5Y6GWCL* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschuftan at phmovement.org Mon Oct 22 11:04:09 2018 From: cschuftan at phmovement.org (Claudio Schuftan) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 11:04:09 -0700 Subject: PHM-Exch> [PHM] a bit of history (5) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *CAPE TOWN CALL TO ACTION* *2012 * *A. Preamble * After two years of participatory engagement and planning we, the People?s Health Movement, have gathered 800 strong from 90 countries representing the voices of tens of thousands more in our movement across every continent in the world. In Cape Town we have: ? strengthened and deepened our resolve and solidarity ? expressed our outrage at the continuing global health crises embedded in a myriad of structural and socio-political inequities; ? developed principles for an alternative economic, political and social order[s]; and ? re-committed ourselves to work towards the world we have envisioned. 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. *B. The Global Health Crisis * Health in the world has been devastated by neoliberal policies that are the hallmark of present day capitalism, and increasingly so by the global crisis of capitalism. The current crisis underpins the growing global health inequalities within and between countries. *The health crisis comes with growing health inequalities * The global health crisis is a consequence of the failure to address the social, political and environmental determination of health, resulting in an erosion of food sovereignty, in higher levels of poverty, as wellas in a lack of fair and equitable access to water, housing, sanitation, education, employment and universal and comprehensive health services. Ill-health and disability are being perpetuated by the aggressive marketing of unhealthy products such as tobacco, alcohol, junk food and beverages; by the pollution of our air, our land and water sources; by the colonization of lands and other natural resources ; and by the forced eviction of vast numbers of people [the population], including indigenous peoples, from their lands and homes. We have witnessed how: ? small farmers are losing their livelihoods as a result of the dumping of subsidised foodstuffs from the agriculture of industrialised in countries in the North; ? indigenous people are being herded off their land by the extractive mining industry and the struggles by communities that are affected are being criminalized; ? the health of workers is jeopardised by the absence of safety [and] regulations at the workplace, as well as by environmental degradation and pollution; ? poor people in dense urban settings are being driven to depend on junk food, available more cheaply than nutritious natural food; ? the relegation of women's health to only encompass maternity and family planning, on the one hand, and the concerted attack on women's reproductive and sexual rights, on the other, violates women's autonomy, personhood, dignity and human rights; ? women and young people are being denied the right to sexual and reproductive health services; ? migrants and displaced people suffer from xenophobia and from a lack of access to healthcare; and ? racism - social, institutional and structural - coupled with religious intolerance, disrupts the lives of people and prevents them from living a dignified life free of fear; ? children?s rights are being undermined by denying them the conditions in which they can thrive and flourish. Millions of families, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, are being denied access to comprehensive primary health care and universal health services by way of their poverty and the other many institutional barriers they face. In high income countries, there has been a continuing campaign to reduce funding and support for the public sector and to replace public services with those provided by the market. Moving health care out of the public domain makes it easier for large capitalist enterprises (big pharma, big insurance and biotechnology corporations) to increase sales and profits, working in close partnership with those who profitfrom the delivery of health services. The commodification of health has been intensified by the persitence and thriving of the reductionistic, industrial, biomedical model. The current global trade and investment regime (driven by multilateral, plurilateraland bilateral trade and investments agreements) is seriously undermining universal social entitlements and rights, as well as the power[s] of states to regulate the activities? of corporations and of private financial institutions. Access to affordable medicines has been compromised worldwide as a result of the WTO-TRIPS Agreement and the continuing pressure on developing countries to adopt TRIPS-plus standards through trade agreements and bogus anti-counterfeiting initiatives. While we welcome the recent [up]surge in interest in the concept of universal health coverage, we oppose the idea that this be achieved through the promotion of a minimalistic insurance model that would offer 'basic packages of care' and would operate within a market-based system of healthcare. We oppose attempts to use this approach to dismantle or undermine the public health system to promote corporate interests in health care delivery. Universal health coverage must be achieved through organized and accountable systems of high quality public provision of comprehensive primary health care and of a working referral system governed by need of care. The global health crisis also reflects a crisis in effective and accountable global health governance. The dimensions of this crisis include: ? The undermining of the World Health Organisation ? The power exerted by a fragmented and uncoordinated health aid industry ? The undue influence of unaccountable private corporations and foundations over health policy and programming ? An approach that seeks to remedy the problems of structural inequality through a ?charity? model rather than through systemic and structural transformations. *The crises of capitalism * *Genesis of the current crisis* The current capitalist crisis has several inter-related dimensions, among them: political, food, economic, financial and ecological dimensions. Its roots lie in the neoliberal model of globalisation that emerged in the 1970s as a response to declining rates of profit and wealth accumulation in developed capitalist economies. It also included privatisation and commercialisation of public services, such as in health, education, water and energy supply and public transport. The model, in its endeavour to create a global market for goods and services, promotes the integration of global economies and the expansion and liberalization of global trade. This model was and is forced upon developing countries through structural adjustment programmes, trade agreements and investment treaties, effectively legally locking many developing countries into the neoliberal paradigm which is highly inequitable and, at best, extremely inefficient in reducing poverty and meeting people?s livelihood needs. Meanwhile, the current development and aid industry merely sustains and reproduces existing social and political inequalities. Neoliberal globalisation has resulted in an immense concentration of power among a wealthy and corporate elite who actively undermine democracy and social justice through their influence and through the corruption of national governments and international institutions. The present political crisis is rooted in the lack of accountable, transparent and democratic decision-making. Even in countries with progressive governments, spaces for democratic participation are closing [down] and protest is being criminalized. The war industry, having blighted lives in many parts of the world, is deeply embedded within the capitalist economic system. Imperialism has increased the use of its military might to maintain and expand its control over the political architecture, as well as the resources of the planet. 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. *The crisis today and its manifestations* The current financial crisis is rooted in the de-regulation of banks that were allowed to become ?too big to fail', to increase their ratio of loans (debts) to assets, and to speculate heavily on currencies, on derivatives and on mortgages. The response of national and international institutions has been merely to ?restore the confidence? of the same institutions and financial markets that caused the crisis in the first place. Governments have moved quickly to bail out the failing banks and have enacted a host of ?austerity agendas? the world over effectively cutting health and social spending thus deepening and reinforcing the very neoliberal economic model the crisis has so discredited, and handing even more power to the managers of finance capital. The ecological crisis is also a part of the capitalist crisis and mirrors the rise in global inequalities as characterized by the obscene over-consumption of a small minority that is overstretching the capacity of the planet[,] while a large majority are denied even their basic needs. The resources of this planet are being privatized and plundered in ways that are damaging and lethal for future generations. Public stewardship of our scarce resources is the only solution to the equitable protection of the planet. Rich nations are passing on the burden of the ecological crisis onto poor nations through various mechanisms, including through the shifting of negative externalities onto poor peoples. Coercive population control policies enacted in the name of climate protection are now violating women?s rights. Many of the effects of overproduction and overconsumption and of climate change are felt by the world's indigenous communities, small-scale peasant farmers, poor people and the working classes. Although the planet is capable of providing for the needs of all its people, the current system of production and consumption only undermines the natural basis of life through a need for constant growth[, while] leaving billions of people in poverty. The annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting under the UN Convention on Climate Change has failed miserably to ensure the rapid reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases. Under the domination of predatory transnational corporations the negotiations have sought to impose false solutions such as carbon trading, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and other market/financial incentives to safeguard continued profit margins and the continuity of economic growth. The food crisis as evidenced by the existence of a billion hungry people and two billion overweight or obese people is a manifestation of a much larger and more pervasive malaise caused by the loss of food sovereignty and of control by communities and poor nations over the use of their own resources. The food system is dominated by transnational corporations (big agribusiness and big food and beverage corporations). This has resulted in, among other things, mono-cropping and the replacement of food crops with crops for bio-fuels; a huge increase in the speculative trading of food grains; unfair trade agreements; and oligopolies in the food retail sector. The food crisis is now deepening by ?land grabs?, a new form of colonialism in which transnational corporations and sovereign wealth funds are acquiring large tracts of arable land in poor and often poorly governed countries ? displacing domestic food production systems, as well as rural peoples from their lands. Meanwhile, hunger and malnutrition is being converted into a new market for processed ready-to-use foods (RUTF) and nutriceuticals, often assisted by the aid industry and multilateral organisations. *C. Our Alternative Vision * PHM seeks a better world and offers a critical alternative. We believe that transformative and radical change is needed and can indeed be achieved. Our vision consists of a number of inter-related dimensions: ? A reformed economic system ? Just, fair and democratic political and economic processes and institutions ? A better global heath governance ? Equitable [and] Public Health Systems. *Reformed economic system* We need an economic system that values every individual, not every dollar. The primary objective must be to maximise benefits to people ? their health, their wellbeing, and their quality of life ? not total output or income. It should be based on collaboration[,] within and between communities and nations, not on competition, and should seek to minimise the use of environmental resources and capacity? while fostering sustainable livelihoods for all. It will be socially directed rather than market driven. Such an economic system will: ? encourage adequate, appropriate, equitable and sustainable consumption, with the least ecological and human impact, reflecting a commitment to future generations and harmony with the planet. ? replace existing global and regional trade and financial agreements with those that will eradicate food insecurity and malnutrition and will foster food sovereignty; ? be rooted in and have obligations towards local communities while being globally responsible; ? establish and develop worker controlled enterprises; ? create sustainable, dignified work opportunities that meet the basic needs of all, ? build solidarity links between people; ? reverse the land grabs that are ongoing; and ? be rooted in the effective measurement of societal progress on the basis of health, social and environmental indicators. *Just. fair and democratic political and economic processes and institutions * We need a new system of global governance, including governance in the different international trade and financial systems, that : ? places health, well-being, human rights and environmental sustainability at the centre of all policies, ? ensures genuine equality of influence at the heart of all decision-making, ? promotes democracy, accountability and transparency at all levels. We need news systems of national governance: ? in which electoral democracy is not captured by capital or undue private interests influence; ? where forms of participatory democracy are integral to structures of governance; ? where people have adequate constitutional rights and protections, including the right to protest against conditions or practices that create social exclusion and oppression. We seek a world in which governments will: ? work multi-laterally to reach peaceful resolutions to international conflicts ? refrain from imposition of their own policies and interests on other sovereign nations, whether through force or by economic pressures; ? be held accountable for the full implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Covenants on Political, Civll and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. A new system of global and national governance will include regulatory structures that, among other, ensure: ? fair and progressive taxation regimes within and between countries that will enable a transformative and equitable redistribution of resources and power; ? closure of tax havens and democratic reform and regulation of the international banking system; ? fair trade arrangements and agreements; ? a new regime for research and development that does not seek to monopolise knowledge in a few hands, prioritises the genuine needs of the largest numbers of people and sees local communities as equal partners in applied research endeavours. ? a new regime for the production, management and distribution of knowledge and technology that prevents their private appropriation and promotes an open system of knowledge sharing. *A better global heath governance* We seek a more coherent and accountable system of global health governance that is free from corporate influence and the influence of unaccountable private actors. We seek a radical rationalization of the multiple Global Health Partnerships and funds. We seek new and more accountable mechanisms for the management and allocation of global public finance, working with and through UN institutions. The World Health Organisation must: ? follow its constitutional mandate to act as the directing and coordinating authority for international and global health ? be fully and adequately funded by assessed and untied contributions from sovereign nations/member States ? be de-facto accountable to countries/States? and the people of the world *Equitable [and] Public Health Systems * Health systems must progressively become: ? Universal, integrated and comprehensive, as well as provide a platform for appropriate action as regards the social determinantion of health; ? supported by a guarantee of the right to health in the national constitution; ? based on accessible, effective, gender-sensitive, youth-friendly and free comprehensive primary health care, accountable and appropriate to people?s health needs; accessible to all, with no discrimination on the basis of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, economic status, sexual identity, disability, cultural knowledge, language or any other basis; ? welcoming of alternate cultural understandings of health and systems of healing, and not based solely on biomedical concepts of health and illness; ? properly and adequately publicly financed with public expenditure representing the major share of total health expenditures, as well as capable of protecting the population against the rising costs of health care; ? be [cap]able to retain local health workers within the national health system rather than losing them to international migration; ? built around an integrated network of public facilities responsible for providing comprehensive care, based on the principles of universality and equality; ? able to strictly regulate commercial health care providers (where present) within an ethical framework; ? participatory and responsive to peoples? needs through social participation in the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies; ? compatible with sound ecological principles and practices. PHM will also work towards developing frameworks of analysis using its global community of public health practitioners, academicians and activists who can work on innovative and creative design solutions that will ensure more effective, efficient and equitable public health systems. *D. What is to be Done? * This Call to Action was developed at and is directed to all delegates of the Third Peoples Health Assembly (Cape Town July 2012) and their fellow health and social activists from across the world. *D.1. Power to the People: Building the Movement * No change will happen without the mobilization of people. Power is not given to the people; it has to be exacted from the political, corporate and financial elites; Our members will hold [our] public institutions accountable and will make them work in ways that are transparent and truly representative and that serve the public interest and social justice. All this requires the building of social and political power among[st] people and communities. The Third PHA celebrated the successes of the growing People?s Health Movement, especially the development of new country circles in Africa. While we are a movement focused on health and are built mainly around health activism, we share many goals with other social movements that also seek a more just and sustainable world. In order to diminish the power of financial capital, democratize governance and defeat neoliberal economic policies, we simply need to build a more effective and broad-based social movement. To this end, we commit ourselves to building alliances with others who seek progressive and transformative change. PHM is in a unique position to build alliances across existing movements, including those of informal and formal sector workers, the landless, indigenous peoples, women and youth. We will build solidarity with those struggling against big dams, nuclear power plants, illegal mining, hazardous working conditions and others. We will work with the environmental justice movement. We will seek [to encourage] greater trans-disciplinary engagement with, among others, progressive economists, environmental scientists, lawyers, urban planners and political-social scientists. We leave/ left Cape Town determined to: ? set up new PHM circles ? energise, broaden and deepen the work of existing PHM country circles ? strengthen and develop the issue-based (thematic) circles of the PHM. We leave/ left Cape Town with a new and reinvigorated and rejuvenated Global Steering Council that, among other, will improve communications within the movement, facilitate effective coordination across the movement and ensure organic linkages with regional and country circles. This will include facilitating the recruitment and support of PHM outreach workers to assist the development of [the] PHM in countries and regions. We will strive to foster and develop community-based struggles, campaigns and advocacy initiatives from local to national and global levels on multiple fronts, as well as develop the health movement in the coming phase. *D.2. Creating and communicating alternative visions, analyses, discourses based on the evidence presented above * We recognise that the neoliberal orthodoxy and the vested interests of the rich and powerful are heavily represented in the mainstream media. We recognise the power of the mainstream media and of corporate propaganda in shaping prevailing views and attitudes and sustaining the belief that there is no alternative to the current political and economic system. We recognize that many scientific journals and institutions of education and knowledge generation act to legitimize and sustain the current system and paradigm. We recognise the lack of investment in research, in monitoring and surveillance that will serve the interests of the poor and promote the global social justice and equity agenda PHM stands for. To this end we leave/left Cape Town and commit/ed to: ? communicating the alternative vision[s] advanced in this CTA, together with its analyses and discourses to the people, using a wide variety of media and communication techniques, especially those that engage people creatively; ? using the Global Health Watch as an instrument to communicate our alternative progressive analysis of the state of global health and our critiques of the current institutional framework for global health. We will work to improve the dissemination of the [contents of] periodic GHWs both in English and in other languages using alternative media so as to reach a greater diversity of audiences. We will [create and] establish and maintain local and national health watches; ? expanding and extending the reach of the International Peoples Health University (IPHU) as a means of education, empowerment and mobilisation of young PHM cadres; ? expanding processes such as community-based monitoring to ensure health system accountability and community oriented action research. *D.3. Organising and planning to make change happen * To make change happen, movement building and alternative analyses must be translated into concrete campaigns and programmes of action. Actions will need to be planned and organised at the local and national levels. However, as a global movement, we will seek to actively support and facilitate a range of campaigns, by: ? providing information and facilitating the sharing of information on the international context that affects country experiences; ? providing campaigning materials on issues of international priority; ? liaising and coordinating with organisations in different countries working on related issues; ? providing multiple fora for the sharing of experiences; ? supporting campaigns at the international level giving e wide publicity; ? [facilitating advocacy regarding] actively mobilizing to oppose health damaging policies and actions of international organizations and of Northern governments. To enable us to fulfil this role effectively, we will intensify our fundraising efforts, in order to strengthen the movement through: - Increasing the capacity of young PHM activists through supporting more IPHUs; - strengthening regions and countries through the recruitment of regional outreach coordinators; - Increasing regional support to build the movement at the local and country level; - Strengthening the global secretariat; - Increasing the resources available for information, media and advocacy activities at the international and local levels. 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschuftan at phmovement.org Mon Oct 22 10:52:15 2018 From: cschuftan at phmovement.org (Claudio Schuftan) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 10:52:15 -0700 Subject: PHM-Exch> IV ASAMBLEA MUNDIAL. SALUD DE LOS PUEBLOS. espaniol In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: From: Jorge Quishpe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: