CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS

CONFERENCE 2022 RESOLUTIONS

Each of the conference days will prepare actions, propositions, key messages and resolutions arising from the day.
These proposals and resolutions will be further refined and integrated with those from the other conference days for final presentation and discussion on the fourth day.
We will keep you updated on this page on issues being debated and reviewed, for your input. We will also provide here in November the compiled messages and resolutions for discussion for final day .

The draft resolutions for Day 2 Reclaiming the State are being posted here between September 15th and 30th and you have 14 days to please provide any corrections, additions, actions that you see as critical based on evidence and experience. We arent showing the introduction here- just the action points for your input. The points are under headings and are numbered so for any change you wish to make please indicate the aub-heading (ESSENTIAL!)  and the number of the specific action point you are referring to and the input you wish to make and email it to the equinetconference [at] equinetafrica.org (subject: DAY%201%20RESOLUTIONS) (conference email) These inputs will be used to update the resolutions and actions to be taken forward from the day.   

DAY 2 ACTION POINTS FROM THE DRAFT RESOLUTIONS

To strengthen the duties, capacities and participatory strategies for sustainable equitable urban wellbeing

  1. We will gather, resource and share evidence, including through participatory approaches, from local to regional level on cross-sectoral, multidisciplinary, holistic and innovative primary health care approaches that improve urban wellbeing.
  2. We will organise, publicly report and share nationally, regionally and in wider exchanges disaggregated evidence and examples and drivers of promising and sustained practice on urban wellbeing, especially in identifying innovation coming from civic and social networks, to expose deficits in and assets for equity in urban wellbeing.
  3. We will assess and expose the current and future health and socio-economic costs of commercial determinants of health, and advocate for stronger public-interest regulation, enforcement, state and other actors’ accountability on and control of commercial risks of health equity within the region, including in relation to ultra-processed foods, loss of biodiversity, access to water, land use, pollution and urban waste.
  4. We will promote healthier alternatives to harmful products and services and the underlying neoliberal paradigm that promotes them, by exploring and sharing options for investment in research and development for, and production and processing of locally produced healthier food options and other health-promoting urban innovations; with a more visible presence of better resourced public sector inspectorates and extension services supporting this, particularly in informal sectors and settlements.

To decommodify, fund, resource and ensure public sector health and essential services for equity and universality 

  1. We will monitor and communicate information on delivery and equitable use of domestic funds  to meet the targets for 5% GDP, and Abuja commitment of 15% government spending on health, on service costs for UHC and the health financing gap, and will use this to argue for national efforts to boost domestic revenue capacities, to avoid tax competition and expand wealth and progressive tax revenues, to increase barriers to illicit financial outflows, to assess and engage on global rules, systems and conditionalities that undermine public sector revenues and their equitable use, including to support the tax justice movements and African finance ministers’ negotiations for a fairer global tax system
  2. In terms of domestic financing, we will gather and share evidence to promote other progressive taxes and tariffs that contribute to health, including on cigarettes, alcohol, sweetened beverages, ultra-processed foods and other harmful products and processes, monitor and advocate for reduced out of pocket spending below 20% of spending, promote options to link different sources of financing in pooled national health insurance;  and promote strengthened domestic financing, leadership and institutional capacities to align various forms of external and private funding, conditions and services to public sector and community goals, systems and capacities.
  3. We will use a combination of evidence, public information, rights-based claims, social accountability and policy engagement to change the discourse to a ‘pro-public’ discourse, to generate societal and political attention to and alliances advocating for regulation of private sector services to protect equity, for investment in decommodified public sector health systems and progressive remunicipalisation of essential services, including as electoral issues.
  4. We will build, join and strengthen cross disciplinary and cross sectoral work, partnerships, alliances and safe-spaces to embed these issues for health and social justice in other processes and networks, and strengthen alliances with key initiatives and institutions in the region and continent, including to support negotiation in and change of current and future global rules systems, funding and accountability mechanisms that affect our ability to address health inequities.

 

To promote comprehensive public health and PHC in pandemics/epidemics

  1. We will share evidence and approaches for epidemic and pandemic outbreak and control that strengthen public surveillance, early warning and response systems and public information, including through participatory monitoring and digital tools and systems that link information and responses at community, including workplaces, with district, national and regional levels in ways that also strengthen the health systems for other health challenges, and in line with the 2005 International Health Regulations.
  2. Within universal public sector-led approaches and systems we will build and profile evidence of more susceptible and vulnerable social groups, including marginalized communities, migrants and cross-border populations, and use this evidence to engage on equity-promoting public sector-led and co-ordinated multi-level, participatory and rights-based approaches that involve a wide range of actors.
  3. We will promote, share evidence and monitor funding for and delivery of strengthened community and frontline voice, resources, capacities, teams and services for comprehensive public health and primary health care to prepare, prevent, identify and respond to pandemics and emergencies, noting links with other resolutions on food sovereignty, environmental health, health promotion and local production of essential health commodities. We will seek to build the capacities for all public health workers, including community health workers, and support efforts to harmonise the core competencies of public health professionals across the region for comprehensive PHC.
  4. We will resist, promote alternatives to and expose efforts to use pandemics and emergencies to privatise public sector health and social services or to impose loan conditionalities that further erode public services. We will promote government investment in and use of domestic resources for local health system capacities and responses and avoid over-dependence on external funding, while noting that this is not an excuse for high income country governments to avoid meeting development financing and international human rights obligations.
  5. For our health systems to be ‘pandemic-prepared’, we will work to strengthen relationships of trust between communities, users and frontline providers and built trust in the health system as a whole through investment in and support of these relationships. We will promote co-operation across the region so that individual country  interventions do not harm or impair the wellbeing of communities but rather contribute to building comprehensive PHC across the region.

To advance priorities and strategies for youth health and wellbeing 

  1. We will give more focus within our diverse areas of work and interactions on conditions, deficits in and drivers of inequity in youth health and wellbeing from local to national and regional level, share information and disaggregated evidence across ESA countries and more widely in a manner that promotes the direct voice, experience, confidence, self-esteem and resources of young people to collectively promote their wellbeing.
  2. Within the range of areas affecting young people we will particularly explore priorities raised by youth themselves, including on their education, incomes, employment, mental health, social relations, sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence; on the impact of migration, on access to information and internet; and on inclusion in decision making in areas that affect them. We will develop methods to more quickly expose the impacts of pandemics, emergencies and other shocks and crises on young people and profile their proposals for response to these impacts.
  3. We will advocate for the implementation of integrated, one-stop youth friendly services including services that integrate youth experience and views for sexual and reproductive health, substance abuse, mental health, social protection and pandemic responses, and for their access to official documentation like birth certificates.
  4. Together with relevant social networks of young people, we will engage governments, policy actors and researchers to co-design regulatory, institutional and participatory measures to tackle immediate harms and promote current and future health of young people, including vulnerable youth and those living with disabilities, including through urban agriculture, health promoting food systems and economic activities; and controlling youth-targeted advertising and marketing of harmful products.