In preparation of People's Health Assembly II - part 7
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Significant Gains made by the People's Health Assembly and the
Movement:
Noteworthy is the ongoing and growing mobilization process at
global level, the Assembly as a historic first gathering and the
Movement that has evolved from it. In more detail, the gains in-
clude the following:
* For the first time in decades, health and non-health networks
have come together to work on global solidarity in health. These
networks include the International People's Health Council
(IPHC); Health Action International (HAI); Consumers Interna-
tional (CI); the Asian Community Health Action Network (ACHAN);
the Third World Network (TWN); the Women's Global Network for
Reproductive Rights (WGNRR); Gonoshasthya Kendra (GK) and the
Dag Hammaeskjold Foundation (DHF). In the last couple of years,
new networks like the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) and
the Social Forum Network are linking with us.
* Even at country level, in some regions, this coalescence is
beginning to happen. In India, for instance, the national col-
lective now includes the science movements; the women's move-
ments; the alliance of people's movements; the health networks
and associations; some research and policy networks and even
some trade unions.
* Another significant development has been the evolving solidar-
ity PHM has found for its various collective documents at the
global level (People's Health Assembly 2000b & c). These have
included themes such as:
- Health in the era of globalization: from victims to protago-
nists; The political economy of the assault on health;
- Equity and Inequity Today: some contributing social factors;
- The medicalization of Health Care and the challenge of Health
for All;
- The environmental crisis: threats to health and ways forward;
- Communication as if people mattered: adapting health promotion
and social action to the global imbalances of the 21st century.
Taken together, these documents represent an unprecedented,
emerging, global consensus.
At country level, such consensus documents that support public
education and public policy advocacy have been upcoming. In In-
dia, for instance, five little booklets, translated into most
Indian languages, are now available on the following five
themes:
- What globalization means people's health;
- Whatever happened to Health for All by the year 2000;
- Making life worth living by meeting the basic needs of all;
- A world where we matter: focus on health care issues of women,
children, street kids, the disabled and the aged; and,
- Confronting the commercialization of health care.
These booklets have been published by 18 national networks that
form the national coordinating committee in India; this repre-
sents an unprecedented consensus, the first of its kind in five
decades!
(part 8, final, to follow)