AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER - UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
 

Forum on Health In Africa: The Mirror Of The World, 01/07




21
23 January 2007
Nairobi, Kenya

II World Social Forum On Health: Political Agenda

Health In Africa: The Mirror Of The World

To Be Held Within The Framework Of The VII World Social Forum, January 21 to 23, 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya

AGENDA:

MAIN SUBJECT

The human right to health and the creation and development of universal, Comprehensive and equitable health systems and social security in the African and world context

A health for all agenda: another Africa and another world are possible and Necessary...

Panels, activities, approaches and topics to develop the main subject:

Day 1: 21/01/07 Morning 9-12:00

Opening Ceremony

Panel 1 -Exploring the political background of the struggle for the right to health in Africa and in the World-

  • Equity as the engine behind the setting up of policies and systems of health and social security.
  • Health as an international and national public good and the implications of this fact; how to ensure the acceptance and inclusion of the social determinants of health in health care services in the agendas of the free trade agreements.
  • The right to health ( a model of human development friendly to health that addresses the economic and social determinants); the right to comprehensive primary health care. How to break the biomedical logic behind today´s health care practices.
  • Health promotion strategy respecting equity and quality health care.
  • The political economy of worldwide systems of health and social security; how to give economic priority to the payment of the accumulated social debt and how to link this effort to a sustainable economic development.
  • How to handle the relationship of economic development projects (e.g., those of the mining and energy sectors) to overcome poverty and ill-health through the redistribution of resources and profits from the productive sector.

Day 1: 21/01/07

13
30 - 15:00
Parallel tracks with presentations and activities of different organizations and movements around health issues, preferably around the subjects of the Panels of the day.*

Day 1: 21/01/07 afternoon 15-18:00

Panel the 2 -Challenges to respond to the health and social security needs of Africa - a threatening reality and a world-wide responsibility-.

-Health needs of the different regions of Africa and their relationship with the needs of other continents; barriers to the advancement of guarantees to the right to health for the different social actors involved. -Existing space for debate and for the formulation of proposals that consider the national, sub-regional and continent wide realities. The African Social Letter and the Latin American Social Agenda in the context of regional blocks of countries; positioning health as a central axis of this integration. -Identification of strategies for a SOUTH - SOUTH cooperation between social movements and governments. Can the right to health be the axis of such social agendas in the integration of country blocks to oppose the neoliberal globalization and its free markets- -Can we overcome the fragmentation of the struggles that only respond to systematic -sanitary emergencies- so as to fight for the health care of the people with HIV, Malaria, TB... and to fight against maternal and infant mortality... against the morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular diseases, mental disease, cancer, injuries- These all need to be fought as struggles integrated around building universal systems of guarantee of the human right to health and social security. -The right to health in the context of the wars in Africa. -Health and work - work in its present configuration and the guarantee of the right to health, to work, to a healthy atmosphere and to social security as elements of interdependent rights.

Day 1
21/01/07 Evening 18:00 - 20:00
African Session of ´The International Court of Peoples- Right to Health´: Examining the national and international responsibilities in matters of violations of the Right to health; vindicating the concept of genocide (or the conscious production of social inequity and death through the -planned lack of assistance- promoted by the neoliberal policies).
Day 2
22/01/07 9:00-12:00
Panel the 3 -The struggles for health care in Africa - multiple needs in search of universal systems of health and social security-
  • Ways out for the generalized crisis of hospital-based care and the defence of public hospitals, including the universal and comprehensive access to emergency care. Flawed Primary Health Care and the building of truly universal health systems directed towards equity and comprehensive care.
  • The fight against transmissible and non-transmissible diseases: AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, the other endemic and forgotten diseases, injuries, mental health, avoidable morbidity and mortality - including childhood and maternal - in the context of the promotion of universal systems of health care in Africa: possibilities and obstacles.
  • Wars and the international cynicism about the regional and national conflicts in Africa.
  • Economic migration and the deterioration of health.
  • Sexual and reproductive health and the right of women in the African and international context - policies and systems to defend it. -The brain drain - migration of the health workers of Africa towards the rich countries - a mortal diaspora. -Financing of health and social security systems: tax funded systems x insurance systems /targeting systems
Day 2
22/01/07 13:30 - 15:00
Parallel tracks with presentations and activities of different organizations and movements around health issues, preferably around the subjects of the Panels of the day.*
Day 2
22/01/07 15:00-18:30
Series of Panels (Panel 4) - - The role of the political actors in the fight for the Right to Health in Africa - limits and commitments-

-The role and performance of national governments around the subject of public policy in health and its contradiction with the policies imposed by the international financial institutions; alternatives policies of health and social security in the region when facing to the real social needs of the population. -The role of Local Governments in Health; decentralization and the performance of these governments; their limits and duties. -The role of parliaments in the adoption of public policy with a view towards human rights that allows universal access to health and to social security. -Legislative guarantees of rights (to be accompanied by a debate of the models of financing universal and comprehensive health.

  • The multilateral organizations and NGO s - the democratization of their management and their commitment to universal and integrated systems of health and social security. -Strategies of the social movements in the fight for the right to health and social security in the context of the different countries, subregions and the continent; the relationship of those struggles to the world-wide movement for health for all now. -Participation and Control of Society and the State when defining and executing policies of health and social security. The political emancipation of communities and the role of the State. Strategies for communities to take control of health as a right and to articulate it with the right to social security and a sustainable development. -Organization of health and social security workers and the political building of universal, comprehensive and equitable public systems.
Day 3
23/01/07 9:00-12:00
Panel 5 -- Building a Worldwide Agenda for the Right to Health- -Projects and Actions for an International Mobilization with emphasis on the next 5 years and an agenda for a Network on the Right to Health in Africa; interconnected initiatives to develop a politics of justice in the economic relationships within the Continent and the reorientation of humanitarian and technical aid and economic cooperation. -PHM Global Campaign for the Right to Health and Health Care. PHM Agendas. -Campaign against privatization in Europe. -Campaign for the Human Right to Health in Latin America. -Campaigns against Wars and the situation of the right to health in the context of armed conflicts. -Campaigns against the payment of foreign debt and in favor of health and education investments. -Campaigns against the payment of the external debts and in favor of health and education investments. -Food Security World campaign -TRIPS and Intellectual Property - drugs and medical technology -MDG and the critical role of civil society - policy making challenges -The Commission of Social Determinants of WHO - an obstacle or a tool for human rights on health- -Organization and Edition of an International Electronic Bulletin of the World Social Forum on Health published in many languages, according to proposal submitted by ATTAC France. -April 7: mobilization in favor of the right to health and-other agendas.
Day 3
23/01/07 13:00 to 14:30
Parallel tracks with presentations and activities of different organizations and movements around health issues, preferably around the subjects of the Panels of the day. *

Day 3: 23/01/07 14:30 -17:00

Panel 6 - Needed alliances between social movements towards universal social security: health, education, social protection, environment, food security, access to water, housing conditions, land ownership, urban reform, public security, transportation, energy, women´s rights, children and young persons movements, free sexual orientation, black and indigenous people movements and others.-

17-19:00 Plenary- Conclusions and Political Agenda Approval, decision about the dates and venues of the World Social Forum on Health activities in 2008 (a III World Social Forum on Health or a World Congress on Right to Health and the Universal Health and Social Security Health Systems Development).

ATTENTION

* The parallel tracks activities are auto-managed initiatives that the different organizations and movements can propose to the World Social Forum on Health Secretariat till the 10th of January. The Secretariat already made the inscription of those spaces in the WSF Agenda and paid for that, what means that the organizations that propose activities on those spaces do not need to pay. Please notice the date of January 10 for your proposal submission. More information can be achieved at the page http://www.fsms.org.br and the submissions could be made by the mail mailto:fsms@berthier.com.br

--
Claudio Schuftan
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn


Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.

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