We would like to alert all that this widening influence of capital is not an abstraction. It sets quality of life possibilities. It is not only traceable to the World Bank and the IMF, since these organizations only reflect the direction chosen by big capital, the one that dominates world affairs today, and is supported by many a government (rich and poor!). The owners of these conglomerates care about the health of their investents instead of caring about the health and welfare of their own people. We thus affirm that the fight against this order has to be undertaken in every town, region and continent by effective and sustained means. We call on every woman and man to defend their own livelihood and dignity and that of the future generation and work towards a fair, equitablee and solidary world. We are frequently trapped to accept options offered to us that are bad and poor and fear that the future will be even worse. Laws are often not applied and violated by their own proponents, generating rights’s abuses and the loss of formal people’s freedoms. Only politicizign the debate can give us the power and creativity needed to create another world that puts social rights first. Health is an outcome reflecting its economic and social determinants. Health for all requires fighting for the full respect of the social, economic and cultural rights of people. For us, health is an essential human right, a primary right of citizens and a public good. It is the duty of the Statein the name of public interest, The state has to defend citizens’ interests from the inequities of a fre market system. Health should not be purchased. So, we will defend such a role for the State so it serves its citizen in real democratic terms. We reiterate that all states must defend reorganize and finance social welfare and the health systems of its people with equity as the fundamental characteristic. We demand from politicians and the economy to uphold ethical principles and defend people’s dignity. A greater worldwide solidarity in defense of life is needed directing the economy more towards people’s needs satisfaction. It is a scandal that structural adjustment and efficiency criteria in the health sector neglect the need of people. Prices of pharmaceuticals are not controled, and the pharmaceutical industry is directly linked to big capital and imposes often exhorbitant prices on the Third World also blocking the initiatives of developing national pharmaceutical industries. We demand that exclusive patent rights are dropped, opening wider opportunities for locally producing more medicines and medical equipment. We are suspicious about all the speeches which we hear where international financial agencies, governments and political parties from rich and poor countries speak about poverty and the need to fight it without mentioning the need to change the economic development model that is generating unemployment, the trampling of social rights and making the poor/rich gap bigger. We challenge these organizations, governments and corporations to engage in a public and democratic debate of fostering a development with a real human face. By no means do we deny the need for reforming health systems and states so that they become indeed closer to the more equitable human development ideals. What we do not accept is the imposition of one only logic focused on the interests of international capital. In an era of great scientific development, ethics and equity are even more important to defend health as a public good. In the face of all these facts, we propose: a strong and ongoing stands of all of us against the neoliberal model and its consequences over people’s basic rights; solidarity with the people whose social rights are overrun by neoliberalism; mounting a strong resistance against free trade zones that attack our poor countries’ economies and sovereignty; politicizing the debate, i.e building a collective Political Agenda for the Defense of Health as a Right, defining health as an Essential Human Need, as a Public Citizens Policy, as a Public Good and a Duty of the State. The Political Agenda calls for a democratic and participative process of building what our people want and need. There is an urgent need for a worldwide public debate about a development model guided by equity considerations. As part of this effort, we propose an agreement to elaborate a multi-center alternative report on equity and health conditions; people’s dirct representation in national and international organizations so organized people can express their needs directly, and not through the often irresponsible mediation of their governments; the inclusion in each country’s legislation of the universal and coprehensive right to health, with the assignment of enough resources to respond to the social and quality health needs of the people. We need to mobilize national and international constituencies to fight against those programs that focus on poverty without considering universal rights, equity and greater social justice; condemning all and every form of violation of the right to health by public or private institutions, with special emphasis on the violations caused by states and governments themselves. We need to set up an International Observer Task Force to monitor these violations and to refer them to the International Court of Justice; governments adopt quantified goals for all public health and quality of life indicators, the monitoring of the same aimimg at reducing inequities related to unmet needs, such as reducing maternal and infant mortality rates, reducing unemployment, lack of adequate housing. We call on all concerned citizen of the world to reach out to all workers and organizations to together erase all privileges from unfair patents over medicines which are needed sometimes for the very survival of poor people: medicines are a public good, as Brazil and South Africa have shown and done in relation to drugs against AIDS. We reiterate that Health as a Human Right is one of the central topics today in the 3rd World Social Forum (2003); that Health of the People is one of the central topics in the Rio + 10 Forum, which will take place in Africa in 2002; We call for a worldwide process of mobilization towards the accomplishment of the goals of the 2nd International Forum for the Defense of the Right to Health of People in Porto Alegre on January of 2003, held imediately before the 3rd World Social Forum; a worldwide support for the 1st World Health Forum, to be held in the first half of 2004 in Porto Alegre; All individuals and organizations that agree with the principles and guidelines proposed in this document now should live up to our invitation for the meetings in 2003 and 2004. We plan to organize a continental protest against the transformation of health into a commodity. We will work on this in collaboration with all workers from public services. We propose and we invite you to join our fight for a society oriented towards social justice and equity, where respect for human dignity goes beyond the mere accumulation of wealth. We call on you to reflect about all this and to act, moved by hope and by indignation. Porto Alegre, January 30th, 2002. For contacts and comments, please write to joser@sms.prefpoa.com.br or armandon@portoweb.com.br o alames@movinet.com.uy Latin American Association of Social Medicine – ALAMES Brazilian Center for Studies on Health - CEBES Porto Alegre City Government – Municipal Health Secretary – State Health Secretary. *: Note of the moderator:This is an abridged and edited version.