"This paper describes a conceptual framework for the health implications of globalisation. The framework is developed by first identifying the main determinants of population health and the main features of the globalisation process. The resulting conceptual model explicitly visualises that globalisation affects the institutional, economic, social-cultural and ecological determinants of population health, and that the globalisation process mainly operates at the contextual level, while influencing health through its more distal and proximal determinants. The developed framework provides valuable insights in how to organise the complexity involved in studying the health effects resulting from globalisation."
Health equity in economic and trade policies
The health impacts of globalisation
Globalization and Health 2005
People's Health Movement: The Cuenca Declaration
"We deplore the worsening conditions of health experienced by many of the world's people and we denounce their cause - neo- liberalism. Neo-liberal polices imposed by the G8, transfer wealth from the South to the North, from the poor to the rich, and from the public to the private sector. Corporate profits increase while poor people, indigenous peoples and the victims of war and occupation, suffer. Economically and politically generated health inequalities have increased, yet these root causes of avoidable disease and death are not effectively addressed by current policies or programs."
Further details: /newsletter/id/31077
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and poor people's right to water
Natural Resources Forum, Volume 29 Issue 2 Page 154, May 2005
"The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) seeks to expand international trade in a wide range of services ranging from tourism to telecommunications and education. In recent years, it has come under attack from civil society organizations in both the North and the South for having a detrimental impact on poor people's right to basic services. This article explores some of these controversies, using the example of water services. It focuses specifically on the impact of the GATS on poor people's right to water and national governments' ability to safeguard the interests of poor people through regulation."
G8 2005: a missed opportunity for global health
The Lancet 2005
This year people in bars and at football matches were asking about the Group of 8 (G8) nations summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. Such unprecedented popular interest was prompted by Bob Geldof's Live 8 concerts and the Make Poverty History campaign. These initiatives were organised to raise awareness about African poverty and to pressure politicians into tackling the preventable global burden of disease afflicting billions of people living in low-income settings. When asked if his lobbying had paid off, Geldof said, “A great justice has been done”. He should have said “No”. (requires registration)
Globalisation bad for health
Alternative reports on global health, presented at the second People's Health Assembly in Ecuador this week, question the free-market, neoliberal economic model and view it as the cause of many of the health problems facing humanity today. These include the indiscriminate use of toxic products in agriculture, pollution caused by the oil industry, the consumption of transgenic crops, the destruction of the urban environment by pollution, and the commercialisation of health services. The reports by the Global Health Watch and the Observatorio Latinoamericano de Salud see a healthy life as a fundamental human right, the enjoyment of which depends on economic, political and social factors.
WHO praises G8 on health
Statement by Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General, World Health Organization
"Today the G8 has made an unprecedented commitment to health which has the potential to forever change the lives of millions of people in Africa. Disease kills 3.5 million African children under five every year. HIV/AIDS affects more than 25 million African people. Tuberculosis kills 1500 each day. A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth. I welcome the G8's pledge to turn these trends around. The aim of providing near-universal access to AIDS treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS by 2010, combined with prevention and care, has the potential to turn the tide on this epidemic. We already know that treatment can turn a fatal disease into a chronic condition and we have demonstrated that this works in resource-poor countries."
G8 should focus on HIV, women's empowerment
When the leaders of the world's largest industrial nations meet in Scotland, they will debate how to address the HIV/Aids crisis and whether to significantly increase assistance to Africa. But for the summit to have a real impact on the Aids pandemic, the G8 will have to do more than increase funding; they will have to address the economic and social realities that make women and girls a special, high-risk group. Evidence from Africa shows the importance and cost-effectiveness of this strategy.
Global Trade and Public Health
American Journal of Public Health 2005
Global trade and international trade agreements have transformed the capacity of governments to monitor and to protect public health, to regulate occupational and environmental health conditions and food products, and to ensure affordable access to medications. Proposals under negotiation for the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the regional Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement cover a wide range of health services. Public health professionals and organizations rarely participate in trade negotiations or in resolution of trade disputes. The linkages among global trade, international trade agreements, and public health deserve more attention than they have received to date. (abstract only)
Implications of the G8 debt deal for Africa
Debt campaigners need to be very clear about what the recent debt deal actually represents and its serious limitations, says a briefing paper from Eurodad. "There is broad agreement among civil society organisations that the deal doesn't go nearly as far as the overblown rhetoric which accompanied its release. And that it has some worrying strings attached.”
MSF urges UN and G8 AIDS drug action
The international medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), is urging G8 nations and the UN to push for speedy delivery of the cheapest and latest anti-AIDS drugs to developing countries. MSF stressed that this was vital to head off a looming supply and cost crisis, because "access to newer drugs is increasingly critical, as the growing number of people with HIV/AIDS currently on treatment will inevitably develop resistance to first-line treatments".