People's Health Movement - Global Health Watch

Global Health Watch

The Peoples Health Movement plays a lead role in co-ordinating the production of the Global Health watch.

In an increasingly integrated, globalised world with new cross-border threats to health, widening disparities in both health and access to health care, and an unacceptable level of human suffering and premature mortality in developing countries, people across the globe are asking, why is so little progress being made by in promoting health in the world?

The Global Health Watch is designed to seek answers to this question and also to start articulating solutions. It is an endeavour to propose to the global community an alternate vision of health that is located in a vision of equity, rights and empowerment. It is a collaborative exercise, initiated by the Peoples Health Movement (PHM), Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) and Medact in 2004. An important outcome of the process is the periodic publication of a document termed the Global Health Watch – a document that is contributed to by researchers, academics and activists from across the globe. Two editions of the document have been published, the first in 2005 as Global Health Watch I and the second in 2008 as Global Health Watch II. The third edition of the GHW is to be published in 2011. The Global Health Watch aims to:

• Promote human rights as the basis for health policy

• Counterbalance liberal and market-driven perspectives

• Shift the health policy agenda to recognise the political, social and economic barriers to better health

• Improve civil society's capacity to hold national and international governments, global international financial institutions and corporations to account (including WHO and the World Bank)

• Strengthen the links between civil society organisations around the world

• Provide a forum for magnifying the voice of the poor and vulnerable

The document is divided into the following broad sections:

1. An analysis of the global political and economic architecture, within which are located the decisions and choices that impact on health.

2. A view of current issues and debates on health systems across the world, from which it is possible to draw appropriate lessons and propose concrete actions for promoting health.

3. Beyond Health Care – a discussion of different determinants of health

4. The Watching Section – dedicated to the scrutiny of global processes and institutions that are crucially important for health and health care in the globe.

5. A section proposing alternatives and highlighting stories of success and resistance that are exemplars of actual actions that have contributed to better health and health care.

Thus, unlike other reports on global health, the Global Health Watch also draws attention to the politics of global health and the policies and actions of key actors. The document is also a call to all health workers to broaden and strengthen the global community of health advocates who are taking action on global ill-health and inequalities, and their underlying political and economic determinants. Not only is it an educational resource for health professionals and activists, it makes clear the need for global health advocates to engage in lobbying many key actors to do better and to do more, whilst resisting those that do harm. It also seeks to act as a catalyst for the development and strengthening of existing campaigns around the world to improve health and equity. The document published as the Global Health Watch is, thus, a culmination of a global process. Typically, each Watch is contributed to directly by over 200 people from across the globe. While the published document is an important product, it is by no means the only outcome to be desired from the entire process. The process of producing the Watch involves the animation of a large number of different processes, in different regions and countries. The process promotes the scrutiny of national and regional policies related to health. It also promotes debate among health academics and activists on key issues that are critical for the promotion of global health.

The Watch itself has different uses and target audiences. It is a lobbying tool for health movements to work on policy makers in countries and global institutions. It is also a resource book for academics and health activists. It is a tool to mobilise civil society on issues of major concern. Thus the Global Health Watch goes much beyond the production of one document. Further, the launch of the GHW in different parts of the world is an opportunity to mobilise around issues that impact on access to health and health care.

While the PHM is responsible for the Secretariat of the Global Health Watch, its co-ordinating group also includes Medact (based in the UK), Health Action International, Medicos (Germany) and Third World Network.