Global Health Watch 2 has been launched!
We are delighted that Global Health Watch 2 -the alternative world health report- was launched yesterday, and is our new Lancet Student Recommends. Please visit the GHW website for a summary of the new report and information on how to order a copy, together with all the chapters of the previous report. Keep an eye open for the 27 chapters from GHW 2 which will be freely available on the GHW site soon! The launch was well attended by academics, NGOs, and students and we tell you a bit about it below. Please email us and give us your take on the report. We would love to hear from you! We’ve also posted our weekly Lancet digest today. Hannah, Vanessa & Rhona
Yesterday afternoon University College London hosted the launch of the eagerly awaited Global Health Watch 2, described by Anthony Costello, Director of the Centre for International Health and Development at the UCL Institute of Child Health, as ‘radical, challenging and alternative’. It is designed ‘to support existing advocacy, social action and active resistance’. Dr. David McCoy, managing editor of GHW 2, described GHW as being equity focused and ‘not just pro-poor’; a report that ’sets out to conquer the neoliberalisation that has shaped globalisation’.
Launched just two days after WHO’s The World Health Report 2008, GHW is an alternative health report “on those who normally write the reports”, which echoes many of the analyses in the final report of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, particularly the impact of power and politics on global health.
The World Bank claim that the number of people living in poverty has decreased, however, closer analysis by GHW has shown that when China is excluded from the calculations, the converse is true; and when the poverty line is lifted to $2 a day, the number living in poverty increases when China is included.
One of the seven key features of GHW is that it offers an alternative development paradigm. Growth is necessary for development, but this risks further environmental damage and climate change which impacts negatively on health. The report offers three alternative development models in an attempt to reconcile the need to tackle climate change as well as the need for growth.
There are no chapters on diseases in the report, which takes a multi-sectoral approach and focuses instead on health systems and access to health care. Dr. McCoy described the use of vertical programmes as sticking plasters to solve horizontal, health systems problems. Guest speaker Professor Chandra, from the Peoples’ Health Movement India, offered a perspective from India, where 1 in 3 of the world’s malnourished children live. A member of the People’s Health Movement, she talked about the replacement of comprehensive healthcare under Alma Ata, with selective healthcare under the World Bank. The priority, she said, is economic advancement, so that private doctors get rich and multi-nationals get richer. She described the World Bank as a ‘distant democracy’, dumping unwanted programmes on India.
Accountability in global health governance and government aid is another key theme running throughout the report. The Gates Foundation is the third largest funder of WHO, despite its lack of an ethical investment policy, introducing corporate regimes into fragile health systems, and hugely influencing the global health agenda. In addition, Dr. McCoy said that the neglect and undermining of WHO by governments has resulted in a need to campaign for better funding and management of this leading global health body: “We need nothing short of a redistribution of power, and a global movement for change.”
Professor John Yudkin described students as ‘the most powerful drivers of change’, stressing the importance of education and remarking at the increasing popularity of global health courses in the UK. The Lancet and The Lancet Student’s Rhona MacDonald, one of the authors contributing to the report, said that, like The Lancet, GHW is a source of evidence, and the next step is to use this evidence as a foundation for advocacy. The recent financial crisis has shown how the greed of so few has affected so many, so let the dedication of many affect global change.