At the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health, held in Rio de Janiero Brazil from 19-21 October 2011, reports from countries indicated a promising range of actions being taken to assess or monitor equity and the social determinants of health (SDH), measures to plan and review action on SDH, as well as actions to strengthen constitutional protection of the right to health and to strengthen intersectoral action and comprehensive primary health care. However, few countries reported on actions on economic determinants, and countries that have regulated commercial interests for public health reasons, such as introducing taxes on foods high in fat or sugars, or in implementing legal controls over tobacco, allege they have faced counter litigation from companies. Despite persuasive evidence, health equity has been a marginal consideration in trade, economic or climate forums. Public health advocates argue that equity should be included at the centre of wider economic, trade and development agendas, including the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 (Rio+20) and the UN Millennium Development Goals. While a task force of UN agencies was set at the WCSDH, key economic and trade agencies were not present.
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The author, citing evidence from World Health Organisation, argues that climate change raises challenges for health in Africa for a variety of reasons. African countries have a high burden of climate sensitive diseases and poor public health capability to respond. Under-nutrition and weak infrastructures may reduce the capacity to mitigate the effects of health risks from climate change. Negative effects of climate change on socioeconomic development may also seriously undermine health and well-being of people in such countries. WHO reports that many of the projected impacts on health are avoidable and could be dealt with through a combination of public health strategies, support for adaptation measures in health-related sectors such as agriculture and water management, and an overall long-term strategy to reduce health impacts. In Africa the author argues that countries should implement the priority actions outlined at the 2008 first Inter-ministerial Conference on Health and Environment held in Libreville, Gabon, contained in the Libreville Declaration. This Declaration was signed by 52 African countries and commits them to address challenges relating to health and the environment.
The Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa, Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda, 21 September 2009, gathered members of parliamentary committees responsible for health from twelve countries and from regional bodies in Eastern and Southern Africa, together with technical, government, civil society and regional partners, to promote information exchange, facilitate policy dialogue and identify key areas of follow up action to advance health equity and sexual and reproductive health in the region. The meeting was held as a follow up to review progress on actions proposed at the September 2008 Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa hosted by the same organisations. This document outlines the commitments to follow up action made at the meeting.
The Consultation on Improving Access to Health Workers at the Frontline for Better Maternal and Child Survival was held at the InterContinental Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya from 25 to 27 June 2012. The objective of the consultation was ‘to speed up and scale up country responses to the human resource needs of both the UN Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health (Every Woman Every Child), and the Global Plan towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections Among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive (Global Plan) as a key aspect of both plans’. The communique presents the key proceedings and opportunities, experiences and challenges to guide further action. The Consultation underscored the need for ministries of health, continental mechanisms such as the AUC, regional organisations such as ECSA HC, SADC, WAHO and OCEAC, development partners, FBOs, funding agencies, academic and research institutions, and civic society organisations to give priority to efforts towards increasing access to health workers at the frontline for better maternal and child survival. Recommendations were made to achieve this.
The World Health Organization’s 2006 World Health Report “Working Together for Health” highlights the urgent need to improve human resources (HR) in the health sector in developing countries (HRH). the report does not address the shortfall specifically in the persdonnel for health research, nor the skills and human resources needed by developing countries to improve health research. A conference on Human Resources for Health Research (HR-HR) was held on July 2-5, 2006 on this issue. The conference opened discussion on the health research environment; the role of research networks and of communities in health research and skills to improve health research communication. This is the final report and record of the HR-HR expert meeting in Nairobi. Two further products
are under preparation: A short synthesis report of key messages from the conference; and a publication featuring reviewed papers produced by each HR-HR theme.
The third EQUINET regional conference was held in September 2009 and brought together parliamentarians, professionals, civil society members, policy makers, state officials, health workers and international agency personnel. It provided an opportunity to exchange across areas of work on different dimensions of health equity in east and southern Africa. The conference theme, ‘Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Building Universal People Centred Health Systems in East and Southern Africa’ was chosen to share experience and evidence on alternatives through which: poor people claim a fairer share of national resources to improve their health; a larger share of global and national resources are invested in redistributive health systems, to overcome the impoverishing effects of ill health; and countries in east and southern Africa (ESA) claim and obtain a more just return from the global economy, to increase the resources for health. The report follows the abstract book, also available on the EQUINET website, and provides the proceedings of the conference.
This workshop is being held to discuss the evidence from research in EQUINET and related research with a particular focus on east and southern Africa (ESA) on global health diplomacy. It will present and discuss the findings from the EQUINET research programme and from related research in Africa, and the implications for policy, negotiations and programmes in east and southern Africa; review methods and challenges for implementing research and analysis on global health diplomacy for policy relevance, from review of research and experience of the work; and discuss and propose areas for follow up policy, action and research, within ESA and through south-south collaboration. The reports of the EQUINET research are on the website
Do global health platforms provide meaningful opportunities to advance equitable health systems and population health in east and southern Africa? What factors have supported effective negotiation of African policy goals on health systems within international and global health diplomacy? This brief outlines, with hyperlinks to the relevant reports, the findings and proposals for follow up policy review, action and research from a three year EQUINET led policy research programme with government officials, technical institutions, civil society and other stakeholders and in association with the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA –HC). The first two pages provide the broad findings, proposed actions and research agenda. Subsequent text presents the findings and proposals from the specific themes investigated in the programme.
The meeting held June 4-5 in South Africa was organised by Training and Research Support Centre and Centre for Trade Policy and Law for EQUINET in dialogue with the Strategic Initiative of Global Health Diplomacy co-ordinated by the East Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) Health Community. It was supported by IDRC (Canada). The workshop was held to gather the lead institutions of the research teams for the three case study areas, together with resource people from policy, technical, international agency and research communities to discuss and further develop the three case studies and their links to policy processes on global health diplomacy. The case studies are on implementation of the WHO Code on international Recruitment of health personnel: access to essential drugs through south- south relationships with China, Brazil and India; and involvement of African actors in global health governance on universal access to prevention and treatment for HIV and AIDS. Publications in these areas have been included in the searchable annotated bibliography database on the EQUINET website and materials arising from the work will be posted to this website.
This report presents the proceedings of a meeting held on March 13 and 14 a regional meeting was convened with objectives to
i. Present and discuss the findings from the EQUINET research programme and from related research in Africa, and the implications for policy, negotiations and programmes in east and southern Africa;
ii. Review methods and challenges for implementing research and analysis on global health diplomacy for policy relevance, from review of research and experience of the work;
iii. Discuss and propose areas for follow up policy, action and research, within ESA and through south-south collaboration. It included senior officials involved in health from national and regional organisations, health diplomats, researchers from the EQUINET work and others working on health diplomacy and on south-south co-operation in the region and internationally.